IBPS Clerk & PO Exams: Reasoning Section Tips

IBPS Clerk is going to be conducted from 26th November. With less than 2
weeks remaining its time for candidates to learn some tips and tricks for each
section. Weve also come up with a 20 days study plan to crack IBPS Clerk
Exam.
Today were bringing you tips and tricks to crack Reasoning Section in IBPS
Clerk & PO Exams.

Ten reasons why you should prepare for Bank PO Exam

Reasoning, mildly put can turn out to be your golden goose. You can either
score heavily or waste a lot of time and still score less. This section rewards
your hardwork and training. The more you have prepared, the better you score.

IBPS Clerk & PO Exams: How to crack Reasoning

Section
1. Lets start with a topic wise breakup of Reasoning Section in IBPS Clerk Exam. The total number of
questions from this section is 35 :
Topic

No of Questions

Coding Decoding

Inequalities

Syllogism

Blood Relation

Direction Sense

Seating Arrangement

5-10

Puzzles

5-10

Miscellaneous

Note: We have made above topic wise break up using our internal analysis. This break
up is only to give you an idea of the pattern of original exam and how can you utilize
your time more efficiently.

IBPS Clerk & PO Exams: Order of Attempt and Time allocation

2. If you are excellent to good in Reasoning section, then you can should attempt it as
your second section, after completing English(or Quant, we recommend english). Since
you are good at this section, you can allocate 20-25 minutes to attempt it. This gives
you 35 seconds per question if you attempt all the questions. Remember hastily
attempting all questions may decrease your accuracy and result in less marks. So
before you sit for IBPS Clerk, check the list of topics in this section, identify the least
time consuming topics based on your strengths and attempt them first.
3. However, if you are one of those folks who feel their reasoning capabilities arent as
good as their Quantitative and /or Verbal, we would recommend that you to attempt
this section at last and allocate no more than 15 mins to it. You can easily clear cut off
by identifying the category based on the following tip.

IBPS Clerk & PO Exam: Categories of Reasoning Questions

4. Categorization will help you prioritize questions based on your skills and the time

consumed in solving each category. Reasoning questions in IBPS Clerk can be divided
into three categories:

Easy and less time consuming Question: Irrespective of whether your reasoning abilities are strong
or weak, these questions should be your first target. They are fairly easy to attempt, take less time
and have higher accuracy. These questions fall in the following topics:
o Classification/ Odd pair
o Series Completion/ Analogy
o Direction based tests/ Direction Sense Test
o Number, Ranking & Time Sequence Test
o Alphabet test/ Dictionary

You can expect around 10-12 question from this category in IBPS Clerk Prelims 2016

Medium Difficulty Level Questions : The second category of questions in the reasoning section.
You can expect around 15-17 questions from it. The time taken and accuracy percent in these
questions will depend upon how much time you have spent practicing these questions before the
exam. Try answering questions from the following topics and if you are not able to achieve high
accuracy in any particular topic then our recommendation would be to avoid them in exam. There
is no need to take extra risk. The mantra is to get high accuracy in less time. The medium difficulty
level topics are:
o Syllogisms
o Inequalities
o Blood Relations
o Coding Decoding

o Data Sufficiency
For candidates who have average to weak reasoning skills the above two categories
combined are enough to clear the sectional cut off as well as score some marks for
overall cut off. Remember if you get stuck on a question you would lose precious time
which you could otherwise use for scoring well in other sections of exam.

Time Consuming Complex Questions : IBPS Clerk will have around 2-3 sets of these questions
and every set will contain 4-5 Questions. This takes the total to 10-15 questions. These should be
attempted at the end depending upon how much time you have left. Apart from practice you will
also need good judgement to score in these questions. Dont play around with this category if you
arent sure you will answer correctly. The topics are:
o Seating Arrangement
o Complex Puzzle
o Floor Puzzle
o Input Output Machine

IBPS Clerk Exam: What to do in last week before exam

5. Start solving last year questions on reasoning section of IBPS Clerk from any good publisher. We
would recommend Kiran or Arihant. Use the above categorization to identify your weak and strong
sections and spend time getting familiar with them. Focus on mastering the first two categories as you can
surely score 20+ just by solving questions from them.
6. If reasoning is your weakest link, just aim to clear the sectional cut-offs by
practicing first category question thoroughly and choosing those questions from second
category in which you are comfortable and can solve accurately. Attempt 17 +
questions and with good accuracy to clear sectional cut-offs.

IBPS Clerk & PO Exams: Common Mistakes to avoid

7. Writing down everything on paper
We are so accustomed to pen and paper that even while practicing for an ONLINE exam, we tend to
write down questions on paper and then solve them. This habit can create a lot of problem during exam.
No doubt you get rough sheets to solve but writing everything down on paper actually wastes valuable
time. Online exams are designed for faster calculations. As we pointed out you just get 35-40 seconds per
question, so it makes sense to do the calculations in the brain. While practicing try to develop codes that
you understand .For example in relationship questions you dont have to write everything. Just develop
codes or signs for Male/Female, sibling relationship etc and solve them.8. Experimenting
IBPS Clerk Exam in not an ideal place to experiment. Whether its a time division or a new shortcut you
have developed, dont try that in exam. The more familiar you are with the solution, the better and faster
it will be. Mock Tests are good place for experimenting. Stick to your strategy with which you have
prepared while attempting the final exam.9. Pride
Pride can become your Achilles heel in the IBPS Clerk exam. To elaborate, while solving some question
you get stuck and start thinking Oh I am so smart, how can i not solve this ? or I am an Engineer, i
will solve it no matter what. So you try again and again until you realize that you wasted 5 minutes to
attempt it. Maybe you did solve that question but at the end of it you would have lost the ability to score
in questions that were easy and end up scoring way below your potential. Whenever you are faced with
questions that are more complex than usual, the smart move would be to leave them and proceed to solve
the remaining questions. Remember, you are here to clear IBPS Clerk rather than letting the world know
you are the boss.

Topic Wise Questions

10. Here are some topic wise questions and tips to solve them.
1. Seating Arrangement Questions.
2. Data Sufficiency Questions.
To check their video solution by expert, please subscribe to MockBank Youtube
Channel

We hope these suggestions help you in clearing cut-offs and score heavily in
reasoning section of IBPS Clerk 2016. Remember to share these tips and help
fellow candidates.We agree that we might not have been able to cover all your
queries. Please feel free to ask any questions you have in the comments section
below and well be more than happy to answer them.
Next we will publish Tips on the scariest of them all Quantitative Aptitude. Stay
connected. All th