IBPS RRB Office Assistant Exam Pattern & Syllabus
Last verified 31 Jul 2026
The IBPS RRB Office Assistant exam pattern is set out below. Yes — one fourth of the marks assigned to a question is deducted for each wrong answer.
IBPS RRB Office Assistant exam pattern
| Section | Questions | Marks | Duration |
|---|---|---|---|
| Prelims — Reasoning | 40 | 40 | 25 minutes |
| Prelims — Numerical Ability | 40 | 40 | 20 minutes |
| Prelims total | 80 | 80 | 45 minutes |
| Mains — Reasoning | 40 | 50 | 30 minutes |
| Mains — Computer Knowledge | 40 | 20 | 15 minutes |
| Mains — General Awareness | 40 | 40 | 15 minutes |
| Mains — English or Hindi Language | 40 | 40 | 30 minutes |
| Mains — Numerical Ability | 40 | 50 | 30 minutes |
| Mains total | 200 | 200 | 120 minutes |
What counts towards the final merit
Only the Main Examination counts. There is no interview for Office Assistants — the merit list is drawn from the Main Examination alone, separately for each participating Regional Rural Bank.
You choose English or Hindi, not both
The Main Examination offers the language paper as either English or Hindi and you sit one of the two, for the same 40 questions and 40 marks. Both count identically toward the 200-mark total, so pick the one you write faster in rather than the one you think looks better.
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.