SBI PO Exam Pattern & Syllabus
Last verified 31 Jul 2026
The SBI PO exam pattern is set out below. Yes — one fourth of the marks assigned to a question is deducted for each wrong answer.
SBI PO exam pattern
| Section | Questions | Marks | Duration |
|---|---|---|---|
| Prelims — English Language | 40 | — | 20 minutes |
| Prelims — Quantitative Aptitude | 30 | — | 20 minutes |
| Prelims — Reasoning Ability | 30 | — | 20 minutes |
| Prelims total | 100 | 100 | 1 hour |
| Mains — Reasoning & Computer Aptitude | 40 | 60 | 50 minutes |
| Mains — Data Analysis & Interpretation | 30 | 60 | 45 minutes |
| Mains — General Awareness / Economy / Banking Knowledge | 60 | 60 | 45 minutes |
| Mains — English Language | 40 | 20 | 40 minutes |
| Mains — Descriptive (Email and Situation Analysis) | 3 | 30 | 30 minutes |
| Mains total | 173 | 230 | 3 hours 30 minutes |
What counts towards the final merit
Only Phase-II and Phase-III count. The Preliminary Examination is a screening test and its marks are discarded once you are shortlisted.
No sectional cut-off in the Preliminary Examination
SBI states plainly that there is no sectional cut-off in the Preliminary Examination — the category-wise merit list is drawn on aggregate marks alone, and roughly ten times the vacancies in each category are shortlisted. IBPS does the opposite and requires a minimum in every section. If you are sitting both, that single difference changes whether you can afford to skip a weak 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.