SBI PO mock test 2024 is the a golden opportunity for the banking aspirants to get placed in India’s largest public sector bank. Probationary Officer (PO) at the State Bank of India (SBI) is a highly coveted position in the banking sector in India. SBI PO is considered as a prestigious and respectable position in the banking industry and the salary and perks offered to the officers at SBI are very attractive and competitive compared to other banks in the country. Moreover, SBI offers an excellent training program to their Probationary Officers, which includes a blend of classroom and on-the-job training to provide comprehensive understanding of banking operations and preparing them for various challenges and responsibilities. As the largest public sector bank in the country, SBI offers an exciting and challenging career path to individuals aspiring to become successful bankers.
SBI PO 2024 Exam Overview
The State Bank of India (SBI) will tentatively release the official notification for the recruitment of POs in the public sector banks of the country in September 2024. The SBI PO exam will be conducted in three stages - Preliminary Exam, Main Exam, and Interview, and the final selection will be based on the candidate's performance in the Main exam and interview.
To help you understand the format and important aspects of the SBI PO exam we have prepared the following table:
|
Name of Agency |
State Bank of India |
|
Online Registration |
27.12.2024 to 16.01.2025
|
|
Preliminary Exam Date |
8th & 15th March 2025
|
|
Mains Exam Date |
April / May 2025
|
|
Name of the post |
Probationary Officer |
|
Total Vacancies |
600 |
|
Mode of Application |
Online |
|
Mode of exam |
CBT |
|
Selection procedure |
Prelims, Mains, Interview |
|
Official website |
https://sbi.co.in |
SBI PO 2024 Eligibility Criteria
Before applying, you must ensure that you fulfill the eligibility criteria for the post as on the date of eligibility (date mentioned in the notification). The eligibility criteria for the SBI PO exam is similar to other banking exams but it is always important to carefully read and understand the important details before preparing for any exam. It is the basic criteria for appointment to the probationary officer posts in the State Bank of India including educational qualifications, age limit, nationality, work experience, and other specific requirements for this post. By carefully reviewing the SBI PO eligibility criteria, you can determine whether you meet the requirements for the job and whether it is worth applying for.
SBI PO 2024 Educational Qualifications
To apply for the post of SBI PO, here are the essential education qualifications:
-
You must possess a degree (Graduation) in any discipline from a University recognized by the Govt. Of India or any equivalent qualification recognized as such by the Central Government.
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Those who are in the Final Year/ Semester of their Graduation may also apply provisionally subject to the condition that, if called for an interview, they will have to produce proof of having passed the graduation examination.
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Candidates possessing qualifications such as Medical, Engineering, Chartered Accountant, and Cost Accountant would also be eligible.
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You must possess a valid Graduation Mark-sheet / Degree Certificate and indicate the percentage of marks obtained in Graduation while registering online.
SBI PO 2024 Age Limit
To apply for the post of SBI PO, an unreserved category candidate should not be below 21 years or above 30 years of age.
However, there will be age relaxations in the upper age limit for different categories as follows:
|
Category |
Relaxation |
|
Scheduled Caste/Scheduled Tribe |
5 Years |
|
Other Backward Classes (Non-Creamy Layer) |
3 Years |
|
Persons With Benchmark Disabilities |
PwBD (SC/ST) – 15 Years
PwBD (OBC) – 13 Years
PwBD (Gen/ EWS) – 10 Years |
|
Ex-Servicemen, Commissioned Officers including (ECOs) / (SSCOs) who have 5 years 3 rendered at least 5 years of military service and have been released on completion of the assignment |
5 Years |
Nationality / Citizenship:
A candidate must be either –
I. A Citizen of India or
II. A subject of Nepal or
III. A subject of Bhutan or
IV. A Tibetan Refugee who came over to India before 1st January 1962 with the intention of permanently settling in India or
V. A person of Indian origin who has migrated from Pakistan, Burma, Sri Lanka, East African countries of Kenya, Uganda, the United Republic of Tanzania (formerly Tanganyika and Zanzibar), Zambia, Malawi, Zaire, Ethiopia, and Vietnam intending to permanently settle in India, provided that a candidate belonging to categories (ii), (iii), (iv) & (v) above shall be a person in whose favour a certificate of eligibility has been issued by the Government of India.
SBI PO 2024 Application Fee
The application fee for applying for the post of SBI PO would be as given below. You can make the payment of Application Fees/Intimation Charges through the On-Line Mode only. As per the notification, you will also have to bear the Bank Transaction charges for Online Payment of application fees/intimation charges. Also, the Application Fee once paid will NOT be refunded on any account nor can it be held in reserve for any other examination or selection.
|
Category |
Fees (Non-refundable) |
|
GENERAL/ EWS/ OBC candidate |
750/- (inclusive of GST) |
|
SC/ST/PWBD candidates |
NIL |
Salary & Emoluments
For Probationary Officers at SBI, the starting basic pay is 41,960/- (with 4 advance increments) in the scale of 36000-1490/7-46430-1740/2-49910-1990/7-63840 applicable to Junior Management Grade Scale-I. As a probationary officer (PO) in the State Bank of India (SBI), you also receive various allowances in addition to your salary. These include Dearness Allowance (DA), House Rent Allowance (HRA), Medical Allowance, Leave Travel Allowance (LTA), C.C.A., and other allowances & perquisites as per rules in force from time to time.
DA is a cost of living adjustment allowance that is revised every quarter, while HRA varies based on the city of residence. The medical allowance covers medical expenses for the employee and their family, and LTA covers the expenses of travel during annual leave.
SBI PO 2024 Exam Pattern
The selection for Probationary Officers at SBI will be done through a three-phase process:
Step 1: Preliminary Examination (Objective Type) (100 Marks)
Step 2: Main Examination (Objective + Descriptive – 250 Marks)
Step 3: Interview + Group Exercise (50 Marks)
Phase I: Prelims
-
The preliminary examination for SBI PO 2024 will be conducted online.
-
The test will have of 3 Sections (with separate timings for each section)– Reasoning Ability, Numerical Ability, and English Language.
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You will be given 100 questions to attempt in a duration of 60 minutes. However, a sectional time limit of 20 minutes will be there for each section and you cannot jump to other sections until the time for that particular section is over.
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The prelims of SBI PO will be qualifying in nature, i.e, marks obtained in this phase will not be considered while preparing the final merit list.
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There will be no sectional cutoff in SBI PO. You just have to qualify for the total cut-off to be eligible for the next round.
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Candidates numbering 10 times (approx.) the number of vacancies in each category will be shortlisted for the Main Examination from the top of above merit list.
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There will be a penalty of one-fourth of the marks assigned to that question for wrong answers marked in the Objective Tests.
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You can attempt SBI PO mock tests at Smartkeeda to familiarise yourself well with the PO exam pattern.
SBI PO Prelims Exam Pattern:
|
S.No |
Name of the Test |
Number of Questions |
Maximum Marks |
Duration |
|
1. |
English Language |
40 |
40 |
20 minutes |
|
1. |
Quantitative Aptitude |
30 |
30 |
20 minutes |
|
2. |
Reasoning Ability |
30 |
30 |
20 minutes |
|
|
Total |
100 |
100 |
60 minutes |
Attempt a free SBI PO Prelims Mock Test
Phase II: Mains
-
This is the second round in the SBI PO recruitment process.
-
SBI PO Main Examination will be conducted online and will consist of Objective Tests for 200 marks and Descriptive Test for 50 marks.
-
The mains of the SBI PO would be divided into 4 sections – Reasoning Ability & Computer Knowledge, General English, General / Financial Awareness, and Quantitative Aptitude.
-
The Descriptive Test will be administered immediately after conclusion of the Objective Test and candidates will have to type their Descriptive Test answers on the computer.
-
Like in prelims, a sectional time limit for each section would be there in this phase as well and you cannot jump to other sections until the time limit for that particular section is over.
-
There will be no sectional cutoff in this phase of the exam as well.
-
The marks obtained in this round will be considered for preparing the merit and therefore to get the final selection you must score well in this round.
-
Candidates numbering up to 3 times (approx.) of the category wise vacancies will be shortlisted for Phase-III from the top of the category wise merit list subject to a candidate scoring the minimum aggregate qualifying score, as decided by the Bank.
SBI PO Mains Exam Pattern
|
S.No |
Name of the Test |
Number of Questions |
Maximum Marks |
Duration |
Objective Test: The duration of the objective test is 3 hours, and it consists of 4 Sections of total 200 marks. There will be separate timing for every section.
|
|
1. |
Reasoning & Computer Aptitude |
40 |
60 |
50 minutes |
|
2. |
Data Analysis & Interpretation |
30 |
60 |
45 minutes |
|
3. |
General/ Economy/ Banking Awareness |
60 |
60 |
45 minutes |
|
4. |
English Language |
40 |
20 |
40 minutes |
|
|
Total |
155 |
200 |
3 hours |
Descriptive Paper
|
|
English Language (Letter Writing & Essay) |
2 |
25 |
30 minutes |
|
Grand Total |
250 |
|
English Language Descriptive (Letter Writing & Essay)
Descriptive writing is a part of the SBI PO main examination and is conducted just after the completion of the objective paper in the main exam. You are required to choose and write an Essay and a Letter out of the 3 given topics. The total time allotted for the descriptive part is 30 minutes to type a letter and an essay. Scoring well in this section can be a cakewalk for you if you are aware of the latest happenings in and around the world, have a good knowledge of the format for formal/informal letter writing, and possess a good typing speed.
Penalty For Wrong Answers
(Applicable to both – Online Preliminary and Online Main Examination)
There will be a penalty for wrong answers marked in Objective Tests. For each question for which a wrong answer has been given by the candidate, 1/4th of the marks assigned to that question will be deducted as a penalty to arrive at the corrected score. If a question is left blank, i.e. if no answer is marked by the candidate, there will be no penalty for that question. Therefore, if you’re unaware of an answer, it would be better to leave the response blank to save yourself from a negative marking.
Cut-off Score (Online Main examination)
After the completion of the online main examination, a category-wise merit list will be released on the basis of the aggregate marks scored in Phase II (Main Exam). Candidates numbering up to 3 times (approx.) of the category-wise vacancies will be shortlisted for Phase III. You will be required to obtain a minimum aggregate score (cutoff) in the Online Main examination to get shortlisted for the interview. Depending on the number of vacancies available, cut-offs will be decided and candidates will be shortlisted for interview by SBI. The bank will not share the scores obtained by the candidates in the main examination until the interview process is completed.
Phase III – Psychometric Test
This is the last & an important part of the SBI PO recruitment process. The shortlisted candidates from the main examination will be called for a Psychometric Test. The Bank will conduct a Psychometric test for personality profiling, of those candidates who will be shortlisted for Phase III. The results of the psychometric test may be placed before the Interview panel for having a thorough perspective on the candidates. The structure of this phase will be as follows:
|
Test Structure |
Group Excercise |
Interview |
Total |
|
Minimum Marks |
20 |
30 |
50 |
During the interview round of SBI PO, the panel members will try to check your confidence, knowledge, opinions, communication skills, and fitness for the job. This is also the scoring part of the examination process and the marks obtained in this round are added to the final merit. You have to qualify for both the Online Main Exam and the interview with a sufficiently high score to get a final selection.
Final Selection
-
The candidates will have to qualify both in Phase II and Phase III separately to be eligible for the final selection.
-
The marks obtained in the Main Examination (Phase II), both in the Objective Test and the Descriptive Test, will be added to the marks obtained in Phase III for preparing the final merit list.
-
The marks obtained in the Preliminary Examination (Phase-I) will not be added for preparing the final merit list for selection.
-
The final merit list is arrived at after aggregating (out of 100) converted marks of Phase II and Phase III. Selection will be made from the top merit ranked candidates in each category.
-
The marks obtained by the candidates in Phase II (Main Examination both Objective & Descriptive Tests) and Phase III (Group Exercise & Interview) will be normalized to 100 marks as detailed below.
|
Test |
Main Exam |
Group Exercise & Interview |
Total |
|
Maximum Marks |
250 |
50 |
300 |
|
Normalized Marks |
75 |
25 |
100 |
Number of Attempts
As per the official notification, there is a category-wise permissible number of attempts for the SBI PO exam. Therefore you need to keep these limitations in mind while preparing for the SBI PO examination as the candidates who have already appeared for the maximum number of permissible chances are not eligible to apply.
-
The number of chances will be counted from the examination held on 18.04.2010.
-
Appearing in the Preliminary Examination will not be counted as a chance. Appearing in Main Examination will be counted as a chance.
-
Candidates belonging to the General/EWS category can attempt the exam four times, while candidates belonging to the OBC category can attempt it seven times.
-
There are no restrictions on the number of attempts for candidates belonging to the SC/ST/PWD categories.
-
In the years in which only one written examination has been held (i.e. no Preliminary Examination has been held), appearing in this examination will be counted as a chance.
The following table will help you understand the permissible number of attempts for different categories:
|
Category |
Max. Permissible Number of Chances |
|
General / EWS |
4 |
|
General (PwBD) / EWS (PwBD) |
7 |
|
OBC |
7 |
|
OBC (PwBD) |
7 |
|
SC/ SC (PwBD)/ ST/ ST (PwBD) |
No Restriction |
SBI PO Previous Year Cutoff
Having a fair idea of the previous year's cutoff can help you set realistic goals for your own performance in the SBI PO exam. It also provides you with an idea of the level of competition you might be facing in the upcoming exam.
The cutoff for the PO exam is generally lower than that of clerk exams due to an increase in the difficulty level of the paper. By getting an overview of the previous year's cutoff for the SBI PO exam, you can make informed decisions about your target score for the upcoming exam.
However, you must remember that the cutoff largely depends on the available vacancies and the difficulty level of the examination and can differ based on the given factors. Here is the previous year’s
SBI PO prelims cutoff (out of 100) and
SBI PO mains cutoff (out of 200):
SBI PO Prelims Cutoff 2023
|
Category |
Cut-Off Marks |
|
GEN |
59.25 |
|
SC |
53 |
|
ST |
47.50 |
|
OBC |
59.25 |
|
EWS |
59.25 |
SBI PO Mains Cutoff 2023
|
Category |
SBI PO Cut-Off Marks
(Out of 250) |
|
GEN |
70 |
|
SC |
57.50 |
|
ST |
57.50 |
|
OBC |
62.25 |
|
EWS |
70 |
|
LD |
57.50 |
|
VI |
57.50 |
|
HI |
58 |
|
D & E |
58.25 |
SBI PO Prelims Cutoff 2022
|
Category |
Cut-Off (Out of 100) |
|
GEN |
59.50 |
|
SC |
52.50 |
|
ST |
47.75 |
|
OBC |
58.25 |
|
EWS |
59.50 |
|
HI |
21.50 |
|
VI |
50.50 |
|
LD |
46.25 |
SBI PO Mains Cut off 2021
|
Category |
Cut Off (Out of 250) |
|
General |
94.85 |
|
OBC |
86.54 |
|
SC |
77.32 |
|
ST |
75.01 |
|
EWS |
90.01 |
|
HI |
75.77 |
|
D & E |
75.17 |
|
VI |
97.72 |
|
LD |
75.35 |
SBI PO 2021 Interview Qualifying Marks
|
Category |
Cut-Off Marks (Out of 50) |
|
GEN |
20 |
|
SC |
17.5 |
|
ST |
17.5 |
|
OBC |
17.5 |
|
EWS |
20 |
|
LD |
17.5 |
|
VI |
17.5 |
|
HI |
17.5 |
|
D & E |
17.5 |
SBI PO Prelims Syllabus:
SBI PO Mains Syllabus:
SBI PO 2022 Vacancies
The State Bank of India (SBI) releases bank-wise vacancies along with the official notification every year on their official website. For the year 2022-23, 1673 tentative vacancies were declared by SBI for the position of probationary officers in the State Bank of India. The table below shows the category-wise distribution of the tentative Vacancies declared by SBI PO for the year 2022-23:
|
Category |
SC |
ST |
OBC |
EWS |
UR |
Total |
|
Regular Vacancy |
300 |
150 |
540 |
200 |
810 |
2000 |
Tips to Crack SBI PO 2024Exam:
The State Bank of India (SBI) Probationary Officer (PO) exam is a highly competitive exam that requires a disciplined and structured approach to preparation. Owing to the financial benefits and professional growth opportunities, the exam attracts thousands of applicants every year, making it essential to have the right strategy to ace the exam. Acing the SBI PO exam requires a combination of thorough knowledge of the exam pattern and syllabus, along with a well-structured study plan and a focused approach to practice and revision. Here, we will discuss some tips and strategies that can help you ace the SBI PO exam and achieve your dream of becoming an SBI PO.
Here, we have mentioned some important guidelines to be followed to ace the
SBI PO 2024 exam on the first attempt:
-
Understand the examination pattern for prelims as well as mains beforehand and prepare a study plan according to the weightage of the different topics in the exams. Once you have a clear understanding of the examination pattern, syllabus, important topics, marking schemes, cut-off, and the number of safe attempts, you will be able to develop an effective study plan and make the most out of your preparation.
-
After thoroughly covering the syllabus, attempt SBI PO full-length mock tests at Smartkeeda which are the simulation of the actual exam which will give you a good idea of the SBI PO exam pattern and the level of difficulty of the questions asked in this exam.
-
While going through the after-test analysis, keep track of the number of questions you were able to attempt within the given time limit in each section of each mock test. For clearing the SBI PO examination, attempting the maximum number of questions with accuracy should be your goal.
-
Also, you should keep a track of the amount of time spent by you on each question and compare it with the average time spent on that question. You should also compare it with the amount of time spent by the topper on that question through the comparison feature of Smartkeeda. This will give you a clear idea of the topics where you can save your time and invest it elsewhere to score more in the SBI PO exam.
-
Identify your mistakes while going through the solution. Note down the type of question where mistakes are prominent and practice those topics using Topic Tests available at Smartkeeda and boost your score in the upcoming tests.
-
To stay ahead of the competition, it is crucial to keep oneself updated with current affairs and general knowledge to excel in the general awareness section which is one of the most important sections of SBI PO mains. You can attempt monthly mockdrills at Smartkeeda and boost your score in the General Awareness Section.
The
SBI PO exam offers a great opportunity to kick-start your career as an officer in the banking sector and make your dreams come true. Working at SBI as a PO gives you the opportunity to make a positive impact on people's lives by helping them with their financial needs. You will be at the forefront of driving financial inclusion and contributing to the growth of the economy. With dedication, hard work, and perseverance, you can definitely crack the SBI PO exam and secure a promising career in the banking sector.
Here you can find the direct links to practice
Topic-wise quizzes for SBI PO 2024 Exam
:
Thanks & Regards
(Team Smartkeeda)
