State Bank of India — Probationary Officer recruitment. Conducted by State Bank of India (SBI). Nisha knows this paper from the site's own pattern pages — and reads your scores, your mocks and what you haven't touched before saying a word.
Once a year — exact notification/exam months shift cycle to cycle; check sbi.co.in/web/careers for the current cycle's dates. Online CBT — Prelims + Mains objective + Mains descriptive (typed, English only), followed by an in-person Group Exercise & Interview.
100 questions · 100 marks · 60 min with 20-min sectional locks (English 30, Reasoning 35, Quantitative Aptitude 35). Clear each section's cut-off AND the overall cut-off to reach Mains — these marks are then discarded, not carried forward.
170 objective questions (200 marks, 3 hours across 4 sectional-locked sections) plus a 30-mark, 30-minute descriptive test (Email, Situation Analysis, Report/Precis). The combined 230 raw marks are normalised to 75 points of the final score.
Mains-qualified candidates sit a Psychometric Test (non-scoring, used as an input), a Group Exercise (20 marks) and an Interview (30 marks). The 50 raw Phase III marks are normalised to 25 points, combined with Mains' 75 for a final score out of 100.
Qualifying only
Marking: −0.25 per wrong answer
Each of the three sections is a separate 20-minute sprint with no time borrowing between them. Considered the hardest banking Prelims paper by difficulty, even though the format matches IBPS PO's.
Merit — feeds the 75-point normalised Mains score
Marking: −0.25 per wrong answer
Reasoning & Computer Aptitude, Data Analysis & Interpretation and General/Economy/Banking Awareness are each worth 60 marks — 90% of the objective paper; English objective is down-weighted to 20.
Merit — the remaining 30 Mains marks
Marking: No negative marking
3 tasks
30 marks feed straight into the same 230-mark Mains total that converts to 75 of the final 100 points — a task many candidates under-prepare relative to its actual weight.
Merit — normalised to 25 of the final 100 points
Marking: No minimum sectional qualifying score published; SBI sets its own overall Phase III threshold
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Final score = (Mains 230 marks normalised to 75) + (Phase III 50 marks normalised to 25), out of 100 — a materially different formula from IBPS PO's straight 80/20 raw-marks split.
SBI PO Prelims is qualifying only — clear the cut-offs and its marks are then discarded. Mains (170 objective questions for 200 marks + a 30-mark descriptive test) and Phase III (a Group Exercise + Interview worth 50 marks) are each normalised onto a fixed scale and combined: Mains contributes 75 of the final 100 points, Phase III the remaining 25.
40 questions, 50 minutes. Puzzles & seating carry the heaviest single share, exactly as in IBPS PO, but SBI PO's puzzles run noticeably more complex.
30 questions in 45 minutes — fewer questions than IBPS PO's DI section but the same 60 marks, meaning each question is worth more and typically demands heavier calculation.
60 questions in 45 minutes — the largest single question count on the paper, and zero-calculation recall exactly like IBPS PO's equivalent section.
Objective English is down-weighted to 20, but the 30-mark descriptive test (Email, Situation Analysis, Report/Precis) keeps overall English worth 50 of the 230 Mains marks.
The highest-weight chapters in each subject, linked to their notes. Weights are estimates from previous papers where the conducting body publishes none. Your guide weighs these against your own scores.
Sectional cut-offs, speed, and the mock-analysis habit that decides bank and SSC results. Pick one to start, or just talk — Nisha has read your profile either way.
Every fact on this page comes from the exam's blueprint on this site. How the guide uses it: how Guidance works.
Nisha has the pattern and will read your work. Talk it through, and leave with a plan you tick off.
