Syllabus and Strategy for General Awareness/ Banking Awareness/ Financial Awareness | RBI Grade B Mock Test Series & Past Year Papers 2024 - Bank Exams PDF Download

The development of the Indian economy is supported by the banking industry. Banks are an essential link between the wealthy and the less fortunate.  

Hence it is quite obvious that to become a government employee, one has to have a strong understanding and awareness about the overall banking scenario of India

Many students fear the General Awareness section and have a preconceived notion that it is a tough section. Although, General Awareness is considered a very scoring and easy subject in banking exams if one prepares it on a daily basis. 

To guide you through the preparation process of Banking exams General Awareness section, here is a well planned strategy

Guidance from Toppers!

Step 1: Understand the importance and different segments of this section

You are assessed on the basis of your knowledge about Current Affairs, Important Banking Terms, and Indian Banking & Financial Policies.

Banking Awareness plays a vital role while preparing for Bank PO exams such as IBPS Clerk, IBPS PO, SBI Clerk, SBI PO, and many more exams.

Weightage of the section

General knowledge/ Banking awareness/ Financial awareness is a very essential part of mains level banking as

• It is included in the mains examination for 40 marks.
• There is a negative marking of 0.25 marks per incorrect option
• The average time to solve this section is 35 minutes.
• There is one mark for the correct answer.

Syllabus of General Awareness

The syllabus of general awareness section can be divided into 3 categories
1. Current Affairs: These are important political or social events that are happening at the present time. 
2. Financial/Banking Awareness: This is a section that deals with the banking and finance sector. Anyone planning to take up employment in the banking sector must be aware of many of the terms, policies, and other important information associated with financial awareness.
3. Static GK: Things that happened at some point in time and are certain in history, number of dams and national parks, etc.

Previous year trends show that 50-60% of the questions come from Current affairs, 20% of the questions come from the Financial Awareness segment and rest of it is from Static GK.

STEP 2: Newspaper is your friend

• Newspapers give you events backend knowledge. 
• Reading the newspapers daily is a great source of upkeeping information related to banking general awareness. 
• You can read the daily newspaper which publishes all kinds of news like National, International, Business, Sports, Economics, Entertainment, etc.
• Apart from getting acquainted with the current affairs, reading newspapers, journals or magazines also improve your English language skills and vocabulary power
• Read Actively - You must read actively if you want to benefit from reading the newspaper. It means that you should try to develop an approach to the article rather than just reading the words. Ask yourself a series of questions about the issue, then look for answers.
• Finance Page (Economy and Business) - For the bank exams aspirant, this page consists of the most relevant news. Most of the news related to the economy, finance, and banking is covered on this page.
• Read newspaper at least for 1 hour.

STEP 3: Cover the Banking Awareness Section

1. One should have a strong base regarding the banking terminologies and several other aspects of banking sector

2. Banking awareness not only helps you in the mains level exam, it will also benefit in the interview portion as well as most of the questions asked by assessees are about the current and banking awareness topics.

3. Following topics of banking sector should be covered by an individual 

• Important Bank related terms
• RBI and its functions
• Recent banking updates
• National income
• World financial institutions – functions
• Monetary policy
• Financial markets
• Financial sector regulators
• Financial committees

STEP 4: Daily Consumption leads to 100% Retention

Students often start the preparation of this section after the pre level exams and since there is so many facts and figures, they are unable to retain it fully till the exams 

Therefore, an aspirant should start the preparation of these topics with pre level exam preparation.

Being consistent with reading will enhance your reading as well as your GK.

• One should have a habit of reading daily newspapers
• Make notes of the facts and figures. Learn at least 10-15 facts on an average per day
• Revise these facts and figures at the end of the week. 

Following the above steps, you can retain 100% of the information you’ve read.

Step 5: Start with sectional Mocks and PYQ's

So as to test your General knowledge/ Financial awareness, take sectional tests or mock tests.

Through previous year questions, you will be able to recognise the pattern of questions. 

• You can practice your Mock test from the EduRev platform with a time limit.

• EduRev automatically analyzes your exam based on your speed and accuracy.

Check out the sectional strategies here:

• Syllabus and Strategy for English Language 

• Syllabus of Quantitative ability and strategy

• Syllabus of Reasoning and strategy

• Syllabus of Computer awareness and strategy