SBI PO Mains 2016: Reasoning + Computer Aptitude Section – Syllabus & Pattern

Dear Aspirants,

The SBI PO Mains exam is just round the corner, which is scheduled to be held on 31^st July 2016. To score good marks, it is essential to understand the pattern of the all the sections so that one can qualify the Mains exam with better score.

From this year, the pattern of SBI PO Mains Exam has been changed & there will be a combined section of Reasoning & Computer Aptitude instead of two different sections. Also, the time duration has been fixed for each section, which means – you cannot move to other section until the allotted time doesn’t get over of the particular section.

First let us check the pattern of the SBI PO Mains Exam (objective test) – 

The Objective Test has 155 questions spread over 4 sections – General Awareness (Banking + Economy), English Language, Data Analysis & Interpretation Reasoning + Computer Aptitude. The exam duration is of 3 hours.

Below is a detailed pattern & syllabus of Reasoning + Computer Aptitude sections which will help you to prepare better for the SBI PO Mains exam.

Reasoning 

Reasoning has always been the difficult section in SBI PO exam and we expect it to be the same this time too. The reasoning section, tests your analytical and logical reasoning skills i.e. your ability to interpret data and information given in the form of puzzles, brain teasers or clues and sort it to arrive at a meaningful outcome. It does not generally test conceptual or theoretical knowledge (apart from one or two areas) but requires a lot of practice of different question types.

Computer Aptitude 

The pattern has been changed i.e. from Computer Awareness to Computer Aptitude. Now, new types of questions will be asked in Computer sections which will be mainly based on conversion from Binary to Decimal & vice versa. The questions will be asked in the form of puzzle, so don’t confuse in between Computer Awareness & Computer Aptitude.

Expected Number of Questions from Reasoning & Computer Aptitude – The section consists of total 45 questions. Around 35- 40 questions are expected to be asked from Reasoning topics only. The level of the questions from reasoning will be Moderate to Difficult while 10 – 5 questions is expected to be asked from computer aptitude which will be of Moderate level.

Computer Aptitude

Level (Moderate)

This time onwards, SBI has included Computer Aptitude questions in place of the general computer awareness questions in mains exam of PO and Clerk both. In Clerk mains, around 5 questions were asked from Computer aptitude and the level was easy. So now it is expected that in PO mains, Questions from computer aptitude are going to be of moderate level.

For example –

In a certain code language, the symbol for ‘0’ is ‘#’ and for ‘1’ is ‘$’. There are no other symbols for numbers greater than one. The numbers greater than one are to be written only by using the two symbols given above. The value of symbol for ‘1’ doubles itself every time it shifts one place to the left.

0 is written as #,

1 is written as $,

2 is written as $#,

3 is written as $$,

4 is written as $## and so on,

Qs 1. Which of the following will represent 17?

(a) #$$##

(b) $$#$$

(c) $###$

(d) ###$#

(e) None of these

Ans: c

Solution-

17 can be written in binary form as follows:

= (1×2 ⁴)+(0x2³)+(0x2² )+(0x 2¹)+(1×2⁰ )  

= $###$

Qs 2 – Which of the following will represent the value of ($### + $# ÷ #$#)?

(A) 8              (B) 9       (C)   5             (D) 4                  (E) None of these

Ans: B

Solution

($### + $# ÷ #$#)

$### = (1×2³)+(0x2²)+(0x2¹)+(0x2⁰)=8+0+0+0=8

$#=(1×2¹)+(0x 2⁰)=2+0=2

#$# = (0x2²)+(1×2¹)+(0x 2⁰) = 0+2+0=2

($### + $# ÷ #$#) = 8+2÷2 = 8+1 = 9

Reasoning – Level

(Moderate to Difficult)

 Reasoning questions can be asked from the following topics:

• Inequality
• Data sufficiency
• Syllogism
• Coding Decoding
• Linear arrangement
• Circular arrangement
• Puzzle – Floor based
• Logical reasoning
• Input Output
• Miscellaneous – Blood relation, Direction, Ranking, Alphanumeric Series.

1. Inequality – This category has one statement which is followed by more than one conclusion. We have to observe the given statement and then we have to check whether the given conclusions are true or not.

Directions: In the following question, the symbols @, #, $, % and & are used with the meanings as illustrated below:

‘P @ Q’ means ‘P is not smaller than Q’

‘P # Q’ means ‘P is not greater than Q’

‘P $ Q’ means ‘P is neither smaller than nor equal to Q’

‘P % Q’ means ‘P is neither greater than nor equal to Q’

‘P & Q’ means ‘P is neither greater than nor smaller than Q’

Now in each of the following questions assuming the given statements to be true, find which of the four conclusions I, II, III and IV given below them is / are definitely true and give your answer accordingly.

1. Statements: A $ B, B % C,  C & D,  D # E

Conclusions: I. E @ C     II. D $ B    III. A $ E     IV. B % E

(1) Only I, II and III are true

(2) Only I, II and IV are true

(3) Only II, III and IV are true

(4) Only I, III and IV are true

(5) All I, II, III and IV are true

Ans (2) 

Detail Solution:

@ means ≥         # means ≤           $ means >           % means <         & means =

Statement: A>B, B<C, C=D, D≤E

Conclusions:

I.E≥C (As E≥D and D=C which means E≥C)

II.D>B (As D=C and C>B which means D>B)

III.A>E (As E≥D and D=C and C>B which means E>B and we know that A>B, so can’t be sure)

IV.B<E (As E≥D and D=C and C>B which means E>B)

Which means I, II and IV are true, So option (2) is the correct answer.

 II. Data Sufficiency – The best thing about data sufficiency questions is that we don’t have to solve the given questions. We only need to find out which statements are required / sufficient to solve the questions. So these questions are easy in comparison to other questions where we have to do the exact calculations.

For example – Five persons A, B, C, D and E are standing in a row (not necessarily in the same order) facing north. What is the position of D from right?

I.B is to the immediate left of the person who is second to the left of E.

II. C is second to the left of A.

III. E is third to the right of B.

1) Only I and II are sufficient.

2) Only II and III are sufficient.

3) Only III and I are sufficient.

4) All I, II and III together are not sufficient to answer the question.

5) All I, II and III are required to answer the question.

Answer:4

Solution: When all the statements are observed carefully then it is realized that statement I and III are not giving different information which disables us to answer the question even after using all three statements.

III. Syllogism – While solving these questions, one thing that should be kept in mind is that our focus should always be on proving the option wrong. If the option is found wrong in any case then it will not follow and if we are unable to prove an option wrong then the option will definitely be true.

Statements: Some mangoes are fruits. Some fruits are tasty. All mangoes are sour.

Conclusions: 

I. All tasty being sour is a possibility.

II. Some mangoes are tasty.

III. No fruit is mango.

IV. No mango is tasty.

(1) Only I follows

(2) Only IV follows

(3) Only either II or IV follows.

(4) Only I and either II or IV follows

(5) None follows.

Ans (4) 

(i) In this option possibility is asked and it is possible that all tasty are sour. So it follows.

(ii) Some mangoes can’t be tasty always as we can see in the ven diagram. So it does not follow.

(iii) Some fruits will always be mango. So this option does not follow.

(iv) If the second option does not follow then this option will definitely follow and if that follows then this won’t follow.

IV. Linear arrangement – This category is most likely to be asked in the mains paper and at least 5 questions will be there from a complete paragraph and we will have to follow the instructions given in the paragraph to properly arrange the persons/ things given. Once we have arranged them, it will take hardly 2 minutes to solve the 5 questions. We should be very focused in arranging the things/persons because if any sentence is skipped then we can’t do the arrangement.

As we all know that 1 hour is the allotted time for solving 45 questions which means that the level of questions is going to be tough. For making linear arrangement tough, blood relation or the facing direction can be added. Apart from these two options, another option is to add the third variable as liking of persons, year of birth or profession.

V. Circular arrangement – In circular arrangement, persons sit round a circular table. One difficulty that is generally found while solving these questions is that students find it difficult to decide which is the left side and which is the right side of a person. For resolving this hurdle, one can quickly assume oneself to be at that particular person’s place.

For making circular arrangement hard, some persons are facing inward while others are facing outward type of questions can be asked on circular arrangement. Blood relation is another way to make the question tough. Apart from these, people can have different profession or likings.

VI. Puzzle – These may be individual or group questions from a large (almost infinite) number of areas. Sometimes the questions asked from the puzzle are based on floor. We have to follow the instructions to locate the persons on different floors. Once the persons are located on floors properly, we can give the answer for any of the questions asked.

But these puzzles can be made challenging if some other parameters are also added. For example – the persons living on different floors work in different companies, like different brands, like different dishes, have weekly off on different days. While you may not able to cover each question type, the ones that you should definitely practice are:

1. Floor – wise Puzzle

2. Relationships – family tree, coded relationships, relationship puzzles

3. Logic Puzzles – comparisons and ranks, word based puzzles, etc.

4. Selection Criteria

5. Numerical Logic – gambling games, odd weights, cubes, etc.

VII. Logical Reasoning – Around 10 questions can be expected from this category. These questions are asked to check the ability of a person to make right decisions which is a very essential trait for being a perfect leader. In this, a very small passage is given and various types of questions can be asked from the same. One single passage can be used for all the questions or different passages can be used for each question. The various types of questions that can be asked are as follows:

(i) Implicit assumptions

(ii) Inferences

(iii) Cause and Effect

(iv) Course of Action

(v) Strengthening and Weakening of Arguments

(vi) Probably/Definitely True or False

You should decide whether to attempt these or not based on your comfort level.

VIII. Input – Output

Based on the difficulty level of these questions, you can either solve the complete set or sometimes not be able to solve a single question. Here, an input in terms of numbers or words or a combination of both is given. This input is processed through a series of steps and a final output is obtained. You need to identify the logic that is applied in each step. Based on this logic, questions can be asked in two ways:

1. Each question of the set has a separate input and the question has to solved accordingly – These tend to become more time consuming since this is as good as solving five-six different sets.

2. One input is given and all the questions of the set are based on it – This is less time consuming but can be error-prone if you make any mistake in applying the steps to the input. In such case, we would advice you all to write all the steps of the input and not apply any short cut. It might consume your 3-4 minutes, but will gift you with 5 correct answers.

IX. Miscellaneous – Few questions from blood relation, ranking in row or direction can be asked. But it is in trend now to use these concepts in puzzle or data sufficiency. So be ready for these questions as well.

Read here – 

Data Interpretation Pattern of SBI PO 2016 Mains Exam!

Now let us see some of the strategies to approach this section:

 1. The first target should always be the questions which don’t need much time and we can easily solve them if proper practice has been done on those types. For example- Inequality, Coding Decoding, Syllogism, data sufficiency and computer aptitude questions.

2. Initial few seconds observation of any question can easily give us the idea whether it will take less time or more, I am confident in these questions or not. On the basis of these observations, quickly decide whether you want to attempt it right away, after few other questions or you want to skip.

3. Once you are done with the easy ones, it’s the right time to give your mind some exercise and start solving the puzzles. The best thing about the puzzles is that once you have arranged the things / persons at places, now finding out the solution doesn’t take much time.

4. Don’t spend too much time on a particular question because each question is going to be of same weightage. So observe, understand and move to the next one as quickly as possible.

5. Some questions will always be challenging no matter how much you have practiced on the same. So be ready for challenges and be positive.

Thanks

Also Read – 

Complete Reasoning Study Notes For Bank Exam

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