IBPS PO Exam Pattern & Syllabus
Last verified 31 Jul 2026
The IBPS PO exam pattern is set out below. Yes — one fourth of the marks assigned to a question is deducted for each wrong answer. Questions left blank carry no penalty.
IBPS PO exam pattern
| Section | Questions | Marks | Duration |
|---|---|---|---|
| Prelims — English Language | 30 | 30 | 20 minutes |
| Prelims — Quantitative Aptitude | 35 | 30 | 20 minutes |
| Prelims — Reasoning Ability | 35 | 40 | 20 minutes |
| Prelims total | 100 | 100 | 60 minutes |
| Mains — Reasoning | 40 | 60 | 45 minutes |
| Mains — General / Economy / Banking Awareness | 50 | 60 | 35 minutes |
| Mains — English Language | 40 | 20 | 35 minutes |
| Mains — Data Analysis & Interpretation | 40 | 60 | 45 minutes |
| Mains — Descriptive (Essay and Comprehension) | 2 | 25 | 30 minutes |
| Mains total | 172 | 225 | 190 minutes |
What counts towards the final merit
Only the Main Examination and the Interview count. The Preliminary Examination is purely a screening test and its marks are discarded once you clear it.
The marks and the question counts do not line up
In CRP PO/MT-XVI the Preliminary Examination carries 30 questions in English for 30 marks, 35 in Quantitative Aptitude for 30 marks and 35 in Reasoning for 40 marks. Earlier cycles marked all three at one mark per question. Reasoning is now worth more per question than Quantitative Aptitude, which should change how you allocate the 20 minutes given to each section.
Every section is separately timed
Bank examinations lock each section to its own clock. You cannot carry unused minutes from an easy section into a hard one, and once a section closes you cannot return to it. Practising a full paper without sectional timers trains the wrong habit entirely.
Syllabus
Reasoning Ability
Puzzles and seating arrangement, syllogism, inequality, blood relations, direction sense, coding and decoding, order and ranking, input-output, data sufficiency, and statement and assumption. Puzzles and seating arrangement dominate the section.
Quantitative Aptitude / Numerical Ability
Data interpretation, number series, simplification and approximation, quadratic equations, and arithmetic — percentage, ratio and proportion, profit and loss, simple and compound interest, time and work, time speed and distance, mixture and alligation, and probability.
English Language
Reading comprehension, cloze test, error spotting, sentence improvement, para jumbles, fillers, word usage and vocabulary in context.
General / Financial / Banking Awareness
Current affairs of the last six months with a banking and economic slant, RBI circulars and monetary policy, banking terminology and abbreviations, financial institutions and their headquarters, government schemes, budget and economic survey highlights, and static awareness.
Computer Aptitude
Fundamentals of computers, hardware and software, operating systems, MS Office, internet and networking basics, database basics, computer abbreviations and security.