SBI PO Exam Pattern

SBI will be conducting its examination in the upcoming months. Being among the most awaited jobs, SBI offers great opportunities for career growth and thus the examination for SBI PO can not be taken lightly. Therefore, it is advisable to be aware of the exam format and pattern to avoid any errors later. The pattern of SBI PO 2019 is similar to last year. SBI PO 2019 is conducted in three phases:

• Phase I - Prelims or Preliminary Examination
• Phase II - Mains Examination
• Phase III - GD & Interview

After all the phases are completed, the final list of the selected candidates is released which are supposed to be given their respective postings.

SBI PO 2019 Phase I- Prelims Exam Pattern

SBI PO follows a similar pattern as most of the bank exams these days. The competition and exam difficulty level though is quite high in this case as a huge number of candidates apply for it. Therefore, to qualify the first stage and move on to the second, it is extremely important to have detailed information related to the Phase I - Online Preliminary Exam. The SBI PO Phase I generally consists of three sections of English Language, Reasoning Ability and Numerical Ability which are now separately timed and allotted different marks as specified in the table given below:

• Apart from this, the Prelims Exam also contains negative marking of 0.25 marks, which implies that for every incorrect answer 1/4th of the marks allotted to that question will be deducted.
• There will be no sectional cut off in Phase I of SBI PO 

SBI PO 2019 Phase – II: Mains Exam Pattern

The candidates who are able to qualify the Phase I (Prelims) of SBI PO Exam, will be supposed to appear for the Phase II (Mains) Exam. The SBI PO Mains Exam will also be an online objective test along with an English Descriptive test which tests your writing and grammar skills. The Mains Exam will consist of 4 sections: English Language, Data Analysis & Interpretation, Reasoning Ability and General / Economy / Banking Awareness respectively. The sections will be again separately timed and the marks allotted will also vary. The total time duration of this test will be 3hours and 30 minutes including the Descriptive test.

(i) Objective Test

The details of the Objective test pattern are as follows:

(ii) Descriptive Test

SBI PO Mains Objective test is followed by a descriptive test of English worth 50 marks which tests your writing skills in a given time of 30 minutes. You need to be careful with the grammatical and spelling errors also as it may lead to deduction of marks. The candidates also need to take care of the word limit which will be specified in the exam. Thus, it is necessary to write down in a way that summarises your idea in the limited words. You will be required to write down an essay and a letter and have to follow the format accordingly..

There will be similar kind of negative marking in the Mains Examination, where 0.25 or 1/4th marks will be deducted for every wrong answer.

SBI PO 2019 Phase – III: Group Discussion & Personal Interview

After the successful completion of Mains Exam, the results will be announced soon after and the selected candidates will be called for a Group Discussion and Interview, where they will be required to put forward their ideas and will be judged on the basis of that. The interview will also be held along with the GD (Group Discussion) and you can be asked questions related to your personal details, education, experience, etc. The marks will be allotted to both the events differently. We have provided the details based on the SBI PO 2019 notification:

SBI PO 2019 Final Selection

After the completion of the third phase, the scores obtained by the candidates will be assessed and a final cut-off score will be released based on the scores. All the candidates who manage to achieve the final cut-off score will be sent the appointment letter and will join as a PO in the branches allotted to them. The process of reaching to the final cut-off score, based on previous years is explained below: