English Preparation Tips for Bank Exams: Part 1

December 14, 2018

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Read here English preparation tips for bank exams with important topics and best tips on what to study & how to study for English Language for competitive exams.

LET’S TALK ENGLISH!

Commencing your banking preparation firstly involves a big decision, which includes many small decisions- a decision to commit, to stop procrastinating, to overcome hurdles and moreover- to stay motivated enough to not get distracted by anything-‘come what may’! And then when it comes to ENGLISH, we are petrified! Petrified of the horror that a subject like English holds for all of us! Because, no matter what, this is a fact that ENGLISH cannot be won so easily! But, need not worry-we got some quick-crisp tips for you, which may not be the ‘only’ formulae needed for success, but surely the important and helpful ones!

English Preparation Tips for Bank Exams

Some important tips for bank exam preparation are:

Get Rid of the Anxiety

Until you remove this notion in your mind, that English is impossible, you will always stay ‘Out of your Mind’! If you think you can do it, you will 100% be able to do it!

GET, SET, READ!

Unless you get this into your habit, just like brushing your teeth, you are not going anywhere! As soon as you see the morning paper-get hold onto it and just start. (You don’t just have to hold it though)

BREAKING NEWS – Reading the newspaper, is not only going to improve your English language, but also your knowledge of current affairs! So keep going.

Wherever you spot a completely new word, which you might have seen for the first time, or WORST CASE-you aren’t able to even pronounce it– get hold of a highlighter and mark it!
It highlights your weak points, where you really need to work!
So, you have to work even more now- Note down the list of marked words WITH their respective meanings.
When you keep reading, gradually you will catch up and automatically improve on your reading, writing and vocabulary- BUT that requires consistency for a longer time.

Practice One Exercise Daily

Practicing language exercises will give an edge. You can test your learning and improve further.

Explore the Exam Pattern

Once you strengthen your language skills a bit, you need to study the syllabus and work on the different patterns of questions and try to adopt different and specific strategies. Follow the links to learn more.

NABARD Grade A Exam Pattern 2022

SBI PO Exam Pattern

RBI Grade B Latest Exam Pattern

English Preparation Tips for Bank Exams: What to Expect?

THERE IS NO LIMIT TO THE TYPES OF QUESTIONS, BUT WE DISCUSS SOME BASIC ONES…

Reading Comprehension (Read & Comprehend)

Being able to ‘read between the lines is the key to sailing through such comprehensive topics.

Take an overview of the whole passage: no need to read each and every line. This will help you in saving time and catching hold of the underlying theme of the passage.
Once you are done with it, try to go through the basic questions like – antonyms & synonyms, title-based, or direct questions.
SPOT THE KEYWORDS- the most important thing to get hold of the gist or summary of the passage.
Learn to read fast and faster, which can happen only if you have regular and good practice of reading. Try to read according to the questions asked, if you think a question would take a long time, skip it- LEARN THE ART OF SKIPPING.

Error Spotting/Error Detection

As the title suggests, you need to detect the error in the given sentence, and for that, you need to read the sentence at least twice so that you are able to figure out what doesn’t just seem right about the sentence. If required, read again but do not get stuck on it if it just doesn’t click!

Watch the video on Spotting Errors – English Language in Bank and SSC exams to learn more about Spotting Errors in the English Language.

Fillers

This type can be considered an easier one as compared to others, as you are provided with the options which may pose a bit of a problem, being quite close but you can still figure out once you are able to get the context in which the sentence is talking about.
The questions of this type may have single, double, or triple blanks- just to increase the difficulty level.
Having a strong vocabulary and a good reading habit will help you here, really well!

Please note- Don’t fall into the trap of words having similar meanings- Sometimes the usage may differ grammatically according to the context.

Cloze Passage

This type is an extended version of the type 3 – Fillers or we can say a mix of Reading Comprehension and Fillers. We say so, as you are provided with a passage, which requires some comprehension (understanding) and also analysis of the options given to you which can probably ‘fill in the blanks’ appropriately, which requires a good understanding and grip on your reading and analysis skills, so that you can understand the context and the subject that the writer is talking about and choose the most appropriate options.

Paragraph Completion

This type too requires good reading skills and a calm mind so that you are fairly able to understand which topic the paragraph relates to so that you are better able to complete it correctly- PLEASE READ THE PARAGRAPH ATTENTIVELY AND PROPERLY. The option statements can be really close giving you a hard time in choosing the correct one, but you need to be able to spot that one link or keyword which connects to one of the option statements.

Para Jumbles

This is a type containing sub-types:

SENTENCE REARRANGEMENT– you are given a series of jumbled sentences that form a coherent paragraph when they are arranged in proper order. Here you are just required to unjumble the sentences and answer the respective questions which will be a smooth cake walk once you figure out the order. It may take some time of yours but will be worth it. You need to again read the sentences and spot for certain keywords that may help you in figuring out the order faster.
ODD ONE OUT– This is similar to the previous type, with a pinch of difficulty added in the form of an odd sentence added in the series of sentences. So, you need to do two things now- First, try to read all the sentences to make a proper order and second, find the odd sentence out too! The secret lies ‘only’ in figuring out the order of the sentences and WOAH! YOUR WORK’S DONE! Once you are able to get the right order, you are automatically successful in figuring out the odd one which seems out of context from the remaining lines. It can also be the other way round. You can read all the sentences and figure out the connected sentences first which have a common theme and thus keep the odd sentence out.
JUMBLED PARTS OF A SENTENCE– Here you are given single sentence, of which the first and last part is already arranged in order and other middle parts are unjumbled and you are required to arrange them in order.

Phrase Replacement

You are given a sentence with a part underlined or highlighted in bold which maybe grammatically incorrect or correct too. You need to analyse and detect the grammatical error and choose the best replacement from the options given which makes the sentence grammatically correct and meaningful.

Therefore, you must be aware of the fact that it isn’t mandatory that the sentence WILL have an error, so you need not waste your time in picking an error deliberately.

These are few basic patterns in English Language, the list is endless. Watch English Vocabulary Series हिंदी में हर दिन सीखें अंग्रेज़ी के पाँच नए शब्द to learn English Vocabulary Series. There are 25 videos on English Vocabulary, go through them to improve your Vocab.

Also, take a look at ixamBee’s Ultimate BeeBanker Online Course for the best bank exam preparation available today. Follow the link to learn more.

All the very best!

At ixamBee you can find free Online Test Series, GK updates in the form of BeePedia, as well as the latest updates for Bank PO, Bank Clerk, SSC, RBI, NABARD, and Other Government Jobs.