IBPS Clerk syllabus

Clerical recruitment for Customer Service Associate posts in participating public sector banks: a 100-mark preliminary exam of three separately timed tests, then a 200-mark main exam.

IBPS Clerk Preliminary Examination

English Language

30 questions, 30 marks · 20 minutes

Medium of the test is English. The notification's totals are 30 questions and 30 marks, so this guide takes each question as 1 mark. A wrong answer costs one fourth of the marks assigned to that question (0.25 if the question is of 1 mark). A blank answer scores 0.

  • Reading comprehension
  • Cloze test
  • Error spotting
  • Fill in the blanks
  • Sentence improvement and phrase replacement
  • Para jumbles and sentence rearrangement
  • Vocabulary: synonyms, antonyms and spellings

Numerical Ability

35 questions, 35 marks · 20 minutes

Medium is the version the candidate chooses for the State or UT (the list in the notification always includes English and Hindi, and in many States a regional language as well). 35 questions and 35 marks, taken here as 1 mark each. Penalty is one fourth of the marks of that question.

  • Simplification
  • Number series
  • Quadratic equations
  • Data interpretation
  • Percentage, profit and loss, and interest
  • Ratio, average and ages
  • Time and work, time and distance

Reasoning Ability

35 questions, 35 marks · 20 minutes

Same medium rule as Numerical Ability. 35 questions and 35 marks, taken here as 1 mark each. Penalty is one fourth of the marks of that question.

  • Puzzles and seating arrangements
  • Syllogisms
  • Inequalities
  • Coding and decoding
  • Blood relations
  • Direction sense
  • Order, ranking and alphabet tests

IBPS Clerk Main Examination

General/Financial Awareness

40 questions, 50 marks · 20 minutes

40 questions and 50 marks. If every question is equal, each is worth 1.25 marks and a wrong answer costs 0.3125. The notification does not print a topic list for this test. Medium follows the State/UT version list.

  • Banking and financial awareness
  • General awareness
  • Static knowledge that supports those areas

General English

40 questions, 40 marks · 35 minutes

Medium of the test is English. 40 questions and 40 marks, taken here as 1 mark each, so a wrong answer costs 0.25.

  • Reading comprehension
  • Cloze test
  • Error spotting and sentence improvement
  • Para jumbles
  • Vocabulary

Reasoning Ability

40 questions, 60 marks · 35 minutes

40 questions and 60 marks. If every question is equal, each is worth 1.5 marks and a wrong answer costs 0.375. Medium follows the State/UT version list.

  • Puzzles and seating
  • Syllogisms
  • Inequalities
  • Coding-decoding
  • Input-output, blood relations, directions and data sufficiency

Quantitative Aptitude

40 questions, 50 marks · 35 minutes

40 questions and 50 marks. If every question is equal, each is worth 1.25 marks and a wrong answer costs 0.3125. Medium follows the State/UT version list.

  • Data interpretation
  • Arithmetic
  • Number series and simplification
  • Quadratic comparisons