EPFO Assistant 2019 Preparation: Prelims Exam Strategy

Dear Aspirants,

EPFO has announced vacancies for the post of assistant. The total number of vacant posts this year is 280 and the preliminary examination for the recruitment process is scheduled to be held on 30th July 2019 and 31st July 2019. The pattern of the EPFO prelims exam is akin to the ones of other banking and insurance examinations. The candidates will have to attempt three sections viz. English Language, Quantitative Aptitude and Reasoning Ability in a specified period of time which is 20 minutes for each of the three sections.

As the notification is already released you need to accelerate your study in proper strategy and changes nowadays happen in the Pattern. Also, EPFO is one of the most sought-after jobs in the insurance sector as it provides one with a lucrative salary along with a lot of perks and facilities.

EPFO Assistant 2019 Prelims Exam Pattern:

Section	Name of the test(objective based)	Number of Questions	Maximum Marks	Medium of exam	Duration
1	Reasoning Ability	35	35	English & Hindi	20 minutes
2	Numerical Ability	35	35	English & Hindi	20 minutes
3	English	30	30	English	20 minutes
Total		100	100		1 hour

EPFO Assistant 2019 Exam Strategy:

English section:

As we know the English section is important to score good marks in the examination. The correct approach is to first attempt questions in which you are most confident. First, scan the whole English section. Identify what type of questions you have to target first. Prioritize reading comprehension, para jumbles, cloze test, error detection, phrasal replacement, fillers, etc. according to your convenience and attempt accordingly.

In the case of reading comprehension, first, go through the questions and then read the comprehension to understand the theme of the passage.
Fillers, new type match the following sentences, error detections, phrasal replacements are based on subject-verb agreement, preposition, and verb rules. So make sure that you have these topics at your fingertips when you are going to attempt the examination.
Cloze test and para jumble are theme based and try to eliminate options to do them fast.
For vocabulary read The Hindu newspaper regularly. It also helps in comprehending the passage.

Quantitative Aptitude section:

As the EPFO restricted the time limit to 20 minutes. Students have to follow the correct approach that is to first attempt questions in which you are most confident.

In the examination, attempt the questions on quadratic equations, simplification, and approximation, and number series first as you would be able to solve the maximum number of questions within minimum time.
After having attempted all these questions efficiently, go for data interpretation. In every DI 3 questions are always doable. So, try to attempt at least those 3 questions with accuracy. For data interpretation, one must try to learn calculations, concepts of average and percentages
Today miscellaneous part or word problems play an important role, sometimes 15 questions were asked from this part so the topics like CI & SI, time and work, pipes and cisterns, partnership, average, percentage, profit and loss are important.

Reasoning Section:

This section is scoring, even before the introduction of sectional timing, students would give 20 minutes on an average to this section.

Start with the questions that are you can choose to start with questions based on inequalities, direction and distance, syllogism, coding-decoding, alphanumeric series, and other such random topics.
Then try to start with puzzles that appear easy to be solved and proceed with moderate and difficult puzzles in a similar way.

Do keep in mind that accuracy should be the priority while attempting this particular section, as many of you would try to attempt the maximum number of the questions in this section that kind of gives you the maximum average time for each question (20 minutes for 30 questions). At Last, Try to solve as many as Mock test and Analyse them diligently and try to learn what to solve, what to skip and the best way to solve them in a time-saving manner.