IBPS Specialist Officer: Strategy and Analysis.

As IBPS SO-III exam is approaching, So here I am providing the detailed analysis and some tips which may help you to prepare well for the exam.This exam will gives the opportunity for the people who has specialization across the sectors like Information Technology(scale I and II), agriculture,Law,Marketing, charted accountant etc.to enter in to the fastest growing sector that is banking, thus one need a well balanced strategy to crack the exam.

To enter into this remunerative carrier one need to clear IBPS SO written test. After clearing IBPS SO written test one become eligible to apply for SO position in one of  the 21 public sector banks. In this article I willl be providing you the detailed format of the examination
only for the Information Technology(scale I and II)  and some do's and don'ts.



IBPS SO Exam format(I.T-scale I and II)
The first step in preparation for any examination is to know about format of exam.You can plan your preparation if you know format of exam.

Section	No.  of Questions	Maximum Marks
Reasoning	50	50
English Language	50	25
Quantitative Aptitude (Maths + DI)	50	50
Professional Knowledge	50	75
Total Marks	200	200
Time-limit (minutes)	120

    Sectional cutoff =  yes
    Negative marking=  Minus 0.25% per wrong answer.

 A brief summary of Important topics:

1.Professional Knowledge	See Below
2.Reasoning	1.High level reasoning (Syllogism + assumption/inference) 2.Sitting arrangement
3.Quantitative aptitude	1.Calculation Intensive 2.Data interpretation (DI)
4.English	1.Grammar rules + Sentence correction 2.Daily practice of comprehension + Sentence Correction +Arrangement.

Professional Knowledge:(I.T-scale I and II)

A) Data Base Management System (DBMS) – 15-20 Questions
1. RDBMS
2. Normalization
3. Overview of SQL queries
4. E- R Diagrams
5. Transaction Management

B). Data Communication & Networking – 10-15 Questions
1. Network Architecture
2. OSI Model
3. TCP-IP Model
4. Data Communication
5. IP Addressing (Subnetting)

C) Operating System – 4-5 Questions

1. Process
2. Thread
3. Types of OS
4. Semaphore
5. Scheduling
6. Dead Lock
7. Memory Partitioning
8. Page Replacement

D) Computer organization + Hardware (Microprocessor ) – 4-5 Questions
1. Bus Structure

E) Network Security – 2 – 3 Questions
1. Cyber Crimes
2. Risk Management
3. Firewall
4. Cryptography

F) Software Engineering – 2 – 3 Questions
1. Software Development life cycle (SDLC)
2. Software Development Models

G) Data Structures – 3 – 4 Questions
1. Array
2. Linked List
3. Stacks

H) Web Technologies – 1-2 Questions
1. HTML Tags
2. XML
3. Network Security

I) Programming Languages (BASIC)  – 1-2 Questions
1. C, C++
2. OOP (Objected oriented Programming)

Will post some sample questions in upcoming threads....


Things one must keep into his mind while preparing for the exam:

Time Management:

As one has to attempt 200 questions in 120 min (approx 0.6 min per question ). So proper distribution of time is important for each section.Since Professional Knowledge section has more weight-age in terms of marks ,one can maximize its results in lesser time by first attempting Professional Knowledge section which can be solved in less time with good preparation compared to other section.

Sectional Cut off

Second and most important point is sectional cut off.Often candidates do forget this during IBPS SO written exam, which was the case with most of the students who appeared for IBPS PO-III exam so try not to repeat this mistake here. For example if one scored nearly 70% marks in all the sections but less than 10% in one or another section he is not qualified despite he is through with the overall cutoff .So clearing sectional cut off in all sections should be first and foremost thing one should keep in mind in IBPS SO written exam.
Normally 50% is considered as sectional cut off marks in any section(to be on safer side ).So your first aim should be to clear the sectional cut off.Moreover, IBPS has also introduced concept of TWSS (Total Weight age standard score). They create a minimal TWSS score based on performance of candidates that year.You should score above TWSS to get an interview call.So your first aim is to clear sectional cut off and second is to score as much marks as possible.

Question Selection

Utmost care should be taken while selecting the questions. One should avoid time consuming questions in first attempt as happened with most of the students during IBPS PO-III exam as IBPS introduced lots of variety and surprises in between the questions . So its my advice to attempt easy questions first then complex ones. One must try his best not to show ego to the question

 Yeah question mujhe ata hai mai to solve karke rahunga.... like this shitty things

 If you are not able to solve that question my sincere suggestion is that move on ,in your life you will get enough chances to show off your ego thus save it for future ....

Negative Marking

IBPS SO written exam has negative marking.Negative marking means one fourth of marks in deducted for every wrong answer.For example out of 10 questions if you have 5 correct answers but 5 wrong answers then your total marks is (5 – 5* .25) = 3.75.This is really important.

So it is very important not to guess answers.If you have answered decent number of questions to clear sectional cut off then there is no need of all these.Instead of guessing and marking answers try one or two questions which you can solve and are in section you answered less.

I believe that accuracy do play important part in escalating one's  sectional or total score.

Practice Practice and more Practice

There is no shortcut available for any exam one has to emphasize upon only on practice to beat such exams ,the more you practice more is the chance to conquer upon one's mistakes . So its my suggestion that before going to the examination hall its better if you join any test series(there are plenty of them available on the net), and make a workable strategy how to approach the exam. 

  For Previous Year CutOff: Click Me

  For Model Questions Part1 : Click Me

  Stay tuned for more updates....