RBI grade B officer exam pattern, Sample papers & Books

RBI exam pattern, Sample papers & Books
This post follows my earlier blog article on RBI Recruitment Notification, Eligibility & Forms and is intended to give you the pattern of RBI exam as well as study materials for preparation of the RBI “Group-B” officer’s exam: the Sample Papers & Books.

RBI exam pattern:
The 3-phase selection process for the “Group-B” RBI job consists of following phases:
Phase-I: Preliminary Test: Written Exam (Objective type)
Phase-II: Final Test Written Exam (Descriptive type)
Phase-III: Interview.
Phase-I test is only of screening in nature (for selecting candidates for Phase-II test) and therefore marks you score in Phase-I test is not counted for the final merit list. The final merit list is prepared based on the total marks you scored in Phase-II Written Test and the Interview.

Let us go into the detail of these three phases.

RBI Phase-I Exam Pattern:
The Phase-I test of RBI consists of Objective type questions from following four sections:
i) General Awareness.
ii) English Language.
iii) Quantitative Aptitude.
iv) Reasoning.
The exam is of 3 hours duration for total 200 marks. You need to qualify in each of these tests individually – the RBI cut-off marks for these tests have not been specified and would be decided based on the relative performance of the candidates.

Other than just above information, the RBI exam notification has not specified any more information, like number of questions in each section and the mark-distribution. But RBI exam pattern for “Group-B” officer’s exam is very similar to the Bank PO exams, with identical exam sections and hence you can make some guesses about how many questions may be asked from following PO exam pattern for Indian Overseas Bank (IOB):
IOB PO exam pattern: 225 Questions to be answered in 135 minutes with total 200 marks with following section-wise number of questions:
Test of Reasoning Ability 75
Test of Quantitative Aptitude 50
Test of General Awareness 50
Test of English Language 50.
Since you would have 180 minutes (3 hours) for the RBI exam, so may be you would have more number of questions.

RBI Phase-II Exam Pattern:
For those selected in the RBI Phase-I Exam, they would have to appear for Phase-II Exam, which consists of descriptive questions from following three papers:
Paper I – English.
Paper II – Economic and Social Issues.
Paper III – Finance and Management.
The syllabus for these three papers have been given in my previous blog post titled: RBI Exam Syllabus. Each of these papers is of 3 hours duration carrying 100 marks.

Following the RBI Phase-II test, if you are selected, you would have to appear for the final selection: the RBI Interview. Marks you score in the Phase-II & Interview combined would be used for preparation of the final merit list.

RBI Exam Sample papers:
After going through above RBI exam pattern, you would naturally want some free online sample papers for RBI exam preparation. I did some searching for you and could come out with following bank exam prep-materials.

If I were you, my first place to check for sample questions on bank management trainee/PO exam would have been Competition Master in the section “BANK RECRUITMENT EXAMS”, which has been publishing solved question papers of previous years banking exams as shown in the screenshot at left.

You would need to register (which is free) to view these sample question papers of bank exams.

Sample Papers for RBI Exam Phase-I:
You have four sections in the Phase-I test: General Awareness, English Language, Quantitative Aptitude & Reasoning.
You can find the sample papers for these objective tests in the Competition Master website in the section “BANK RECRUITMENT EXAMS”, menu option “Bank PO solved papers”, as shown below:

You would find two sample papers for each of the test of General Awareness and English Language and one paper for each of Quantitative Aptitude & Reasoning.

You can also find some more sample papers from following sources:
From India Study Channel: Bank PO Mock test paper
From Allinterview: RBI Grade-B Officers Recruitment Exam July 2004 Question Paper-1 & Paper-II

Sample Papers for RBI Exam Phase-II:
Here you have three papers: “English”, “Economic and Social Issues” & “Finance and Management”. You can find some sample questions again in the Competition Master in four menu option the section “BANK RECRUITMENT EXAMS”, as shown in the highlighted red box below:
Books for the RBI exam:
I searched for books for RBI Group-B Officers exam preparation and found with following results:
Ramesh RBI Grade B Officers Exam Guide: Price Rs. 320 Offer Price: Rs. 256 Savings: 20%
RBI Grade-B Officers Exam by Dr.Lal & Jain. Upkar Prakashan: Price Rs. 298

Also, since RBI Group-B Officers exam is similar to a bank PO exam, I would like to recommend following Bank PO books for preparation of the management trainee written test. They are available on most of the good bookstores. Also, these books can be bought on-line through Credit Card as well as through Cash-On-Delivery (i.e. you pay when you get the book). And they are offering good discounts of upto 20%.

Oswaal Chapter-Wise Solutions of BANK P.O. (10 Years Solved Papers)
Cover Price: Rs. 299 Price: Rs. 239/- You Save: Rs. 60 ( 20% )

Ramesh Bank P. O. Prev. Solved Papers by RPH Editorial Board
Cover Price: Rs. 150 Price: Rs. 120/- You Save: Rs. 30 ( 20% )

For further preparation:
Upkars State Bank Probationary Officers Examination by T. S. Jain
Cover Price: Rs. 390 Price: Rs. 351/- You Save: Rs. 39 (10% )

Galgotia State Bank Probationary Officers Guide by Ravi Chopra
Cover Price: Rs. 260 Price: Rs. 208/- You Save: Rs. 52 ( 20% )

Ramesh State Bank PO Exam Guide by RPH Editorial Board
Cover Price: Rs. 350 Price: Rs. 280/- You Save: Rs. 70 ( 20% ).

RBI Interview questions:
For RBI Interview, apart from other areas, questions about RBI as an organisation are bound to be asked. So go through the About us page of the website, as well as the wiki.

RBI results website:
After you appear in each of these phases, you would naturally would like to see the result. Check them in the proper time in this RBI exam result website.

Hope with above Sample papers & books for the RBI exam, you would be able to appear in the exam confidently. I would look out for more RBI prep-materials on the net and would post the same as I find them. So visit me again!