Today was the third day of the SBI Clerk Preliminary Exam 2018. Spanning a period of one week (ending June 30, 2018), the exam is being conducted in four time slots: 2 each in morning and evening.
A total of 100 questions had to be answered in 60 minutes. All the sections, except English Language, were available in both English and Hindi. Every correct answer will fetch 1 mark, while every incorrect answer will reduce the score by 0.25.
| Section | Total Questions | Level of Difficulty | Good Attempts | Good Score | Time Taken (In Minutes) |
| English Language | 30 | Easy-Moderate | 21–24 | 18–20 | 20 |
| Numerical Ability | 35 | Moderate | 20–22 | 18–20 | 20 |
| Reasoning Ability | 35 | Easy-Moderate | 21–24 | 18–20 | 20 |
| Total | 100 | Easy-Moderate | 70–75 | 60–65 | 60 |
Note: Section wise and overall cut-offs are not uniform for all states.
| Topic | Number of Questions | Level of Difficulty |
| Reading Comprehension (Based on anxiety and negative thoughts) | 10 | Easy-Moderate |
| Para-jumbles | 5 | Easy-Moderate |
| Spot the Error | 5 | Easy-Moderate |
| Fill in the Blanks | 5 | Easy-Moderate |
| Phrase Replacement | 5 | Easy-Moderate |
The English Language section was more or less along the same lines as the old pattern. Questions from the RC passage were mainly factual. Four questions were from Vocabulary (2 Synonym and 2 Antonym). Overall, the level of difficulty of this section was easy-to-moderate.
| Topic | Number of Questions | Level of Difficulty |
| Number Series (Wrong Number Series) | 5 | Easy-Moderate |
| Approximation | 5 | Easy |
| Simplification | 10 | Easy |
| Data Interpretation (Caselet based) | 5 | Moderate |
| Comparison of two quantities | 5 | Easy-Moderate |
| Miscellaneous (Quant based) | 5 | Easy-Moderate |
There was 1 set of five questions from Data Interpretation (Caselet based). The questions on Wrong Number Series were easy to moderate. The Arithmetic-based questions were primarily from Time and Work, Ratio, SI & CI, Profit, Loss & Discount, Time, Speed and Distance etc. The overall difficulty level of this section was moderate.
| Topic | Number of Questions | Level of Difficulty |
| AR (Data Arrangement- Month based) | 5 | Moderate |
| AR (Data Arrangement - Box based) | 5 | Moderate |
| Analytical Reasoning – Set | 5 | Moderate |
| Coding-Decoding | 5 | Easy-Moderate |
| Blood Relation – Set based | 2 | Easy-Moderate |
| Directions – Set based | 2 | Easy-Moderate |
| Alphabet based | 1 | Easy |
| Numerical Series | 5 | Easy |
| Mathematical Inequalities | 5 | Easy-Moderate |
There were three sets of five questions each from analytical reasoning. No syllogism questions were asked this year. The overall difficulty level of this section was easy to moderate.
Disclaimer: All information on cut-offs, analysis, answer key, and scores are based on independent analysis and evaluation made by Career Launcher. We do not take responsibility for any decision that might be taken, based on this information.
All the Best!
Team CL