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Topper’s strategy to Crack RBI Grade B Exam

by Anuj jindal Online Education Consultancy

Hi guys, let me begin with a question. What comes to your mind when imagining a person vested with immense responsibilities and powers by the government of India, powers that are so exclusive that they can decide the course of the banking industry of the Nation? I won’t be surprised if your answer is awe and wonderment. Well, the person being talked about here is an RBI Grade B officer.

I would be in awe and wonderment too if I were to imagine the life of an RBI Grade B officer. Let me ask you another question. How would you like to be one? It would be pretty much like a dream, wouldn’t it?

Now, however sweet this thought of becoming an RBI Grade B officer might be, it should be noted that to become one, you need to pass through a very formidable series of tests. These tests cumulatively are called the RBI Grade B Recruitments or the RBI Grade B exams.

I know from experience that to crack the RBI Grade B exam is no easy task, and it would call for some pretty serious effort on your part, but if that effort is made with steady grit, tough perseverance, and a smart and ingenious study plan, you’d be able to sail through it like butter on a hot pan.

That said, in this article, I have written about the study strategy used by previous RBI Grade B toppers such as All India Rank (AIR) 3, Muhammad Ali, AIR 6 Aditya Sood, AIR 10 Sameer, and AIR 11 Abhishek. You can go through this strategy, work hard in the right direction and crack the upcoming RBI Grade B exam. So, let’s begin.

RBI Grade B Preparation Strategy:

In order to understand the most perfect preparation strategy as given by previous year toppers, you’d first need to glance through the RBI Grade B exam pattern and the RBI Grade B syllabus.

Now according to the RBI Grade B exam pattern, there are 3 phases or rounds to the RBI Grade B exam. They are:

· RBI Grade B Phase 1, also known as Prelims.

· RBI Grade B Phase 2, also known as Mains.

· RBI Grade B Phase 3, or the Interview Round.

In this article, we shall restrict ourselves to the first 2 phases, I.e., the Prelims and the Mains, and the RBI Grade B syllabus contained within them.

In Phase 1, we shall discuss the RBI Grade B preparation strategy to solve the 4 objective type sections of Quantitative Aptitude, Reasoning Ability, English, and General Awareness.

As far as Phase 2 is concerned, we shall cover the RBI Grade B preparation strategy for the 3 papers of English, Economic and Social Issues, and Finance & Management.

RBI Grade B Preparation Strategy for Prelims

Given below is the section-wise Preparation strategy for the Prelims.

Quantitative Aptitude

The time you should allow for preparation for this section is 20 days.
Usually, the difficulty level of this section is high, therefore prepare well.

Reasoning Ability

The time you should allow for preparation for this section is 20 days.
Usually, the difficulty level of this section is moderate, however, one shouldn’t take this section lightly. So, my advice would be that you prepare well.

English

The difficulty level of this section is expected to be moderate- difficult.

General Awareness

The difficulty level of this section is expected to be moderate.
The time you should allow for preparation for this section: maximum 10 days to cover fully + 7 days of revision
It is arguably the most scoring section of the exam
The GA or General awareness section can be covered on a weekly or monthly basis, but do not cover it on a daily basis

RBI Grade B Preparation Strategy for Mains

Written in the lines below is the strategy you should follow to successfully prepare for the Mains portion of the RBI Grade B exam.

ESI (Economic and Social Issues)

The time you should allot for preparation for this section is 20 days.

Mentioned below are the topics falling under the subject of ESI, and the strategy you should follow while covering them.

1. Macroeconomics

RBI Grade B books to use while covering Macroeconomics: NCERT & Ramesh Singh.
This topic should take a maximum of 5-7 days to prepare, provided you study it for 3-4 hours every day.
Some of the objective, as well as subjective questions that are asked in the exam, are directly from the topic of macroeconomics, therefore you would prepare it well.
A high level of clarity in Macroeconomics will help you understand other concepts such as finance and banking, better.

2. Microeconomics

Microeconomics was added to the syllabus informally at first, but questions do come from this topic, so you should read through it properly.

3. Indian Economy

Cover Indian economy and its history (5-year plans, recent reforms in economics, LPG reforms) from various sources such as Ramesh Singh, NCERT (Indian economic development). For the topic of recent reforms, you can refer to magazines, newspapers, Yojana and Kurukshetra, etc.

4. Growth & Development

You can cover this portion of the syllabus online. It should take only about a day to cover.
Remember to cover the hot topics of “Climate Change” and “Sustainable Development”.

5. Social Issues and Government schemes

As far as this topic is concerned, you should note that there is a big overlap between govt. schemes, and social issues in the RBI Grade B Mains. Therefore, since all govt. schemes are usually introduced as a response to some of the other social issues, you need not cover social issues separately. All you need to do is thoroughly cover all the govt. schemes and through them, all the social issues.
To entirely cover this topic should take around 5-7 days, as you’d need to rote learn a lot of facts and provisions of the various govt. schemes.

Finance & Management (F&M)

The time you should allow for preparation for this section is 20 days.

Mentioned below are the topics falling under the subject of F&M, and the strategy you should follow while covering them.

Below is the detailed guide for preparing each topic of RBI Grade B - Phase 2 F&M paper:

1.Indian Financial System

To prepare for this portion of the RBI Grade B Mains paper, you should read RBI Grade B books like Bharati V Pathak or M Y Khan.

· You can cover this topic within 5-7 days.

2. Indian Banking system

Preparation for this portion of the RBI Grade B Mains paper can be done from the CAIIB and JAIIB study material, and other banking-related books. Also, a lot of this portion can be covered from the RBI website.
You can cover the topic of the Indian Banking System within 7 days

3. Financial Practical (Financial Management)

Preparation for this portion can be done by referring to books like R P Rustagi/IM Pandey/P Chandra. However, you should note that all the 3 books are pretty exhaustive. Therefore, you’d need to filter and read only the most relevant chapters from these.
You can cover this portion within 7 days.
It should also be noted that the weightage of the Finance Practical portion is reducing with every passing year. So, you can leave out this portion for the end.

4. Ratios, Derivatives, Break Even Analysis

The Ratios portion of the RBI Grade B Mains can be covered from the 12th standard books. As far as the derivatives and Break-Even Analysis portions go, they can be prepared for from online sources, and the IM Pandey Book.
You can cover this topic within 5-7 days.

5. Management

Most of this portion can be covered by reading, "T N Chhabra's Human Resource Management" and “TN Chhabra's Organization behaviour and organization Theory”. Some other books that can be used as supplements are “SP Robbins for Organizational Behavior (OB) and Organizational Theory (OT)”, and "Aswathappa for HRM".
The topic of Management would require a lot of reading. So, it would take around 10 days or so to prepare.

English (Descriptive)

To prepare for the English Descriptive paper of the RBI Grade B Mains, you should practice questions of three types:

· Precis

· Essay

· Comprehension

Now, out of these three types of questions that are asked in the English descriptive portion of the RBI Grade B Mains, the essay is the most important. Usually, the topics that are asked in the essay questions are Current Affairs related.

If you prepare for the F&M and ESI properly, you will find the English Descriptive paper to be easy and scoring. However, make sure to practice a lot.

That said, let’s quickly take a look at some important Topper’s Steps to keep in mind while preparing for the RBI Grade B exams.

Topper’s Steps to crack the RBI Grade B

Here are some tips that you’d need to follow if you want to crack the RBI Grade B exam:

Step 1: Cover the RBI Grade B syllabus in its entirety. Do not touch or focus on Current affairs in the first step.

Step 2: After you are done covering the syllabus, start with Monthly Current Affairs. You can divide a month in a 2:1 ratio while following step 2. Meaning, 20 days be given to Current Affairs and the other 10 to revise the RBI Grade B syllabus.

Step 3: After that, you’d need to start taking RBI Grade B Mock Tests. Start doing so about 60 days before the exam date. The RBI Grade B Mock tests will be an immense help in your revisions.

Conclusion

In this blog article, I have mentioned the best preparation strategy for RBI Grade B that you can ever come across on the internet. This strategy has been made after consulting with the most successful previous year RBI Grade B toppers. I hope this blog has been useful to you. With that, I bid you Goodbye and Goodluck.