RBI Assistant Recruitment 2014, Selection Procedure, Syllabus, High Priority Topics and Recommended Books Download

Reserve Bank of India (RBI) has issued notification inviting applications for filling up of 506 posts of “Assistant” in various offices of the Bank. This is a real good opportunity for banking aspirants to join the biggest banking organization of India. Reserve Bank of India is an organization of Govt. of India and is the controller and monitor of all financial aspects in India.
To apply for this post of Assistants in RBI, candidates must possess Bachelor’s Degree in any discipline (Graduation or Passed in Matriculation or its equivalent examination of the Armed Forces with relevant defense service for Ex Servicemen category) with 50% marks (Pass Class for SC/ ST/ PWD candidates). Final year/semester students waiting for their results are NOT eligible to apply for these posts. Download the notification for RBI Assistant Recruitment 2014 in PDF format following this link.

Apply online for the post of Assistant in RBI (link closes on 6^th August 2014). The date of examination is tentatively in 4^th week of September.

Selection Procedure:

The selection procedure for RBI Assistants will be followed by two phases:

(i)                 Online written examination.

(ii)               Personal Interview.

Eligible candidates need to apply online in the RBI website. The candidates will be issued call letter for written examination. The written test will be an online test (Note: it is not a pen and paper test.) comprising of 200 questions and maximum 200 marks in 5 different subjects (40 questions in each part/subject). The successful candidates of written examination will be called for personal interview and final selection will be based on the marks obtained by the candidate in both the online written examination and personal interview. The selected candidates will have to join the RBI office of his choice, which he/she has to mention in the application form itself. Although, the candidate will initially join the RBI office of his choice, the bank may transfer him/her to any other branch offices in the country in a later time.

Syllabus of RBI Assistant Recruitment Examination:

The online written examination of RBI Assistant Recruitment will comprise of 5 parts. The composite syllabus for the online examination is like the following:

Sl. No.	Name of Test	Total Number of Questions	Maximum Marks	Total time
1	Test of Reasoning	40	40	Composite time of 2 Hours (120 minutes)*
2	Test of English Language	40	40
3	Test of Numerical Ability	40	40
4	Test of General Awareness	40	40
5	Test of Computer Knowledge	40	40
Total		200	200

* PWD candidates will get extra time

Important Points about the online exam:

i) The above tests except the Test of English Language will be available bilingually, i.e. English and Hindi.

ii) A candidate has to qualify in each part of the Objective test separately. There will be negative marks for wrong answers in the Objective tests. 1/4th marks will be deducted for each wrong answer. Candidates will have to pass in each of the objective tests.

iii) Only such number of candidates will be called for interview who stand sufficiently high in merit on the aggregate marks of the Objective Tests, such merit being decided by the Bank in relation to the number of vacancies to be filled in.

iv) Final selection will be on the basis of candidate's performance in the written examination and interview taken together in order of merit.

A few more advice for online exam:

·         The test will be an online test, so you have to answer the questions on the computer screen only. So, try to practice a few online mock tests(available in many bank exam preparation websites, just Google it).

·         Be in the examination center before the commencement of the examination.

·         Bring a ball point pen for working out rough calculations.

·         Bring your ORIGINAL id proof (Passport/ Driving License/ PAN card/ Voter card) as well as a photocopy of the id proof. This is really important.

·         Do not forget to attach a passport size photograph in the admit card. The photo must be identical to the one you have uploaded to the website at the time of application.

High Priority Topics for RBI Assistant Exam:

Now we will look into some high priority areas in each part of the RBI Assistant Recruitment exam. I have compiled a collective list of topics that were asked in RBI Assistant Recruitment Exam 2012. I am going to list them subject-wise.

    (a)    Test of Reasoning: In the previous examination of RBI Assistant Recruitment held in 2012, distribution of questions was like given in the following table:

Topic	No. of questions asked
Inequality	5
Dictionary based arrangements	3
Direction Based Tests	1
Coding Decoding	8
Syllogism	4
Data Sufficiency	3
Sitting Arrangement (i) Circular Arrangement (ii) Rectangle (iii) Candidate vs Score	15
	7
	6
	2

So, from the above table, you can see that Inequality, Sitting Arrangement, Direction Based Tests, Coding-Decoding, Syllogism, Data Sufficiency are the topics from which most questions are asked. These are the highest priority topics for the Reasoning test. So, prepare these topics very well so that you can answer almost all questions with minimum effort and maximum accuracy.

    (b)   Test of English Language: This is comparatively an easy section. But if you are not very sound in English grammar then you should really concentrate in building and enhancing the knowledge of grammar and compositions. Take any high school grammar book and read it thoroughly to revise the rules of grammar. Following table depicts the dissection of 2012s question paper of RBI Assistant recruitment.

Topic	No. of questions asked
Vocabulary Qs Based on Passage	5
Questions based on Passage	5
Sentence Arrangement	5
Sentence based Fill in the Blanks	5
Paragraph based Fill in the Blanks	10
Sentence Correction	10

This is the scenario. Reading comprehension like questions based on passage, fill in the blanks based on passage, sentence correction etc. are the dominant topics in English section. If you are not sound enough in English, take help from any objective English guide book. This will surely help you crack this section. And, do not spend much time in this section; you can save time from this section so that you can get some extra time to solve the arithmetic and reasoning questions.

    (c)    Test of General Awareness: General Awareness is considered as a devil of competitive examinations by many candidates. But, truly speaking, this is not the case. If you regularly go through daily newspapers, television news reporting and surf the Internet, 70% of your General awareness problems are solved automatically. Because 70% questions in this section are asked from current events, news and current affairs. Rest 30% questions are asked from General Knowledge like knowledge of History, economy, politics etc. In the RBI Assistant Recruitment test 2012, questions were asked from following topics in General Awareness section.

Economy(Theory, banking related, current affairs related to economy)

Government Schemes, Projects etc.

Space, Defense Related

International events/News/Affairs

Book Authors

Awards won by whom

Sports

Person in News

Science related GK

Miscellaneous GK

 For Economy questions, go through NCERT intermediate books of Economy (Class X, XI, XII).Reading these books should suffice. Other GK and Current events related questions go through periodicals, newspapers, magazines, year book etc.

    (d)   Test of Computer Knowledge: This is a scoring and time saving section. In this section questions are asked from very basic concepts of Computer and Internet. If you have basic knowledge of computer, you can easily score good marks in this section. As an addition to this, the questions are answerable in first look. There is no logic required to answer these questions. So, it saves time. Questions were asked from the following topics in RBI Assistant Recruitment 2012 exam.

Internet, email, Networking

Database management Related

Hardware and Software Related

Operating Systems, Booting, Windows Related questions

MS Office Related questions

Programming related

Computer Security related

If you are not sound enough in computers, grab a basic computer book and try to grasp knowledge on Internet, e-mail, basic Networking terms like FTP, telnet, TCP, HTTP etc. Try to get some hands on experience of MS Office because questions from MS Office are frequently asked in this section. Gain some knowledge of Computer security related terms like Virus, Worms, Trojan, Spam etc.

    (e)    Test of Numerical Ability: This is another time consuming section. You have to work out all problems to get the solution. You are completely out of guessing game in this section. Try to learn some quick arithmetic tricks to solve the mathematical problems quickly. Do not engage in a question for a longer time. If you feel that a problem is eating up your time, then leave it and move on. Almost no one solves this section 100%, so why only you try to solve all of those and spend your whole exam time? High priority areas in this section are –

Basic Arithmetic, Number related questions, BODMAS rule

Percentage

Ration and Proportion

Time and Work, Time and Speed

Average

Area, Volume, Perimeter

Profit and Loss

Alligation and Mixtures

Simple and compound Interest

Data Interpretation

I hope you are well aware about these topics. Just concentrate about time management for this section. Try to solve as much questions you can in a shorter time.

Recommended Books:

As of now, you have a good idea of what type of questions and what topics are asked in each section of RBI Assistant recruitment examination. No let’s move on to some really helping books to boost your preparation. I have included the online purchase link at the bottom for these books. You can buy them following these links.

1.      Numerical Ability Section: For Numerical Ability section, you can go through R. S. Agarwal or Ashish Aggarwal’s book of Quick Arithmatic. Just learn the shortcut techniques given in these books and practice the high priority areas. For Basic Arithmatic and BODMAS rule, give a revision to NCERT Mathematics books of Class VIII, IX, X.

Download NCERT Mathematics Books

2.      Reasoning Section: Again R.S. Agarwal comes with his book Verbal and Non-Verbal Reasoning. ‘Analytical Reasoning’ by M K Pandey of BSC Publications is a very good book to gain concepts of Reasoning topics. I recommend you buy this book and you will not regret. He explains the reasoning topics very easy and analytical approach.

3.      English Section: You can read any High school grammar book. You can buy Arihant’s Objective General English by S P Bakshi for better understanding of General English questions in competitive exams. R S Agarwal’s Objective English is a good practice book.

4.      General Awareness: In General Awareness section, Economy questions are asked along with others. For economy concepts, go through NCERT class IX, X, XI, XII (Optional) economy books. I have already mentioned, go through newspapers like ‘The Hindu’, periodicals and competitive magazines for current events, news and current affairs. You can buy a year book for General Knowledge.

Download NCERT Class IX Economy Book PDF

Download NCERT Class X Economy Book PDF

Download NCERT Class XI Economy Book PDF

Download NCERT Class XII Economy Book PDF

5.      Computer Awareness: Go through any basic computer book. I recommend to read Computer Fundamentals by P.K. Sinha for basic Knowledge on computers. If you have good Internet connectivity, you can ask Google uncle also. Just grab a topic and search on Google. You will get numerous materials on that topic. I have included Study material of Computer and IT from NIOS. These are really good material for computer knowledge. Download from below link.

Download NIOS Computer and IT Study Material