RBI Grade B Preparation, Exam Analysis & Cut Off
The RBI is India’s apex economic and banking organization mandated with the task of keeping the nation’s economy stable.
It does so by creating appropriate fiscal policies and banking regulations in order to manage price stability.
It also serves as the bank to the government of India and the only note-issuing agency to the government.
Impressive isn’t it?
Now, given the merit of the organization of RBI, I want you to think about the abilities of the people that make it possible.
Imagine how impressive they must be. The foremost of the RBI employees start off their careers as RBI Grade B officers.
They are the crème de la crème from amongst the academic and economic elites of our nation.
These officers are recruited yearly through the RBI Grade B recruitment process.
This recruitment process involves a challenging exam consisting of 2 phases and a final interview round.
Needless to say, these RBI Grade B exams are no walk in the park. Only the most dedicated, smart, and hardworking aspirants make it through.
Having said that, I will also emphasize the fact that if you follow a time-bound & disciplined study plan, analyze the papers of the past years and solve them, draw out an intensive strategy and cover the most important topics from the syllabus, then the exam will not take its toll on you, and you shall be able to clear it.
What do you think?
Do you have what it takes to clear the RBI Grade B exam?
Well, if you do, I think you should thoroughly go over this article.
In this article, I have written about how to prepare for RBI Grade B, the RBI Grade B exam analysis, and the RBI Grade B Cut Offs.
RBI Grade B Preparation, Exam Analysis & Cut Off
1. Preparation
1.1 How to Prepare
1.2 Exam Strategies
1.3 Study Guide
2.1 Phase 1 2019
2.2 Phase 2 2019
2.3 Phase 1 2018
2.4 Phase 2 2018
3. Cut Offs
3.1 Phase 1 2019
3.2 Phase 2 2019
3.3 Phase 1 2018
3.4 Phase 2 2018
Basically, this article will be one of the most important things you will read in your quest to crack the RBI Grade B exam.
I do not say this out of a misplaced sense of self-aggrandizement or anything like that.
I say this because these are the exact things that I taught to my very first students when I first started mentoring for the RBI Grade B exams, and incidentally, all of them were able to clear the RBI Grade B exam that year.
I still remember how I had started teaching my very first students.
I had recently quit a cozy and high paying SBI desk job after realizing that my knack lay in public speaking, teaching, and mentoring. Consequently, I started off by teaching a handful of students on Facebook.
These students used to come over to my place on the outskirts of Delhi and there we used to analyze the exam papers of the past years and the cut-offs.
Accordingly, I used to make study plans for them, using which they all were eventually able to clear their RBI Grade B exam that year.
The times I and those students of mine spent at my place in Indirapuram under the pleasant gaze of the evening sun, analyzing the past year papers while sipping on those hot cups of coffee, is something I’ll never forget.
It’s been ages since those days, but even now I sometimes receive calls from those students updating me about how their respective jobs at RBI are holding up and also to talk about how the preparation plan and exam analysis had helped them achieve their RBI Grade B dreams.
Sounds dreamy, doesn’t it?
Well, it isn’t. I tell you, if you go through this article and stick to what’s written in it to the T, you will not taste failure in the RBI Grade B exam. I guarantee you that.
So, without further ado let’s get to the first topic.
RBI Grade B Preparation
You know when I was in school, I used to be an athlete.
I used to compete in 100 meters and cross-country events. I used to have a coach who used to train the athletics team that I was a part of.
Before every post-summer vacation tournament, he used to make us train for 3 hours every day after school under the scorching afternoon sun. That used to be our preparation.
After the prep, we used to sit down with our coach and analyze the teams that were going to compete with us by taking into consideration their past performances.
That’s how we used to gauge the degree to which we needed to stretch ourselves during our preparations.
Now I know what’s going on in your head. You are probably asking,
What has this story got to do with anything?
Well, in this article I have followed the same formula that my athletics coach used to make us follow. Preparations first, analysis second.
Therefore, in this segment, I have talked about how to prepare for the RBI Grade B exam first.
In the next segments I will talk about the topics related to exam analysis RBI Grade B, RBI Grade B cut off 2019, and RBI Grade B cut off 2018.
How to prepare for RBI Grade B Exam
Now, considering that you’ve gone through the RBI Grade B syllabus and are ready to sail through the waters of hard work and toil to reach the shores of the RBI as RBI Grade B Manager, we shall now begin.
So, to start things off, I have prepared a table for you that should help you judge yourself based on what to study, where to study from, and how much to do it.
This is done so you can best prepareyourself for the upcoming RBI Grade B exam date.
It’s been set keeping two important aspects in mind:
- Your academic qualification
- The number of hours you can invest in your preparations
Let’s go through some of the basic points so that you can interpret the table successfully:
- According to your academic qualification, you can be placed in one out of two categories:
- Category 1: If you place in the first category, you are either “Above average in Phase 1 & new in Phase 2”
- Category 2: If you place in the second category, you are “new in both Phase 1 and Phase 2”.
- The other classification that I have created, is based on the number of hours you can consistently put into your studies. The delineation of the total hours you commit per day to your studying the RBI Grade B Phase 1 syllabus, and the same for Phase 2, has been mentioned below. You can fall into one of the following three categories:
- Hours allocated: < 3 hours/day
- Hours allocated: 3 to 6 hours/day
- Hours allocated: > 6 hours/day
Kindly read through the following points, added to further your understanding:
- The RBI Grade B Phase 1 syllabus includes:
- Topics such as Reasoning & Quantitative Aptitude, English, and General Awareness.
- The RBI Grade Phase 2 syllabus includes:
- 3 Subjects namely, Economic & Social Issues, Finance & Management, and English Descriptive.
There might be portions of Phase 1 or Phase 2 that you might be good at, but in the table, you shall be assumed as one who requires improvement in some of the other factors.
This assumption has been kept in mind while allocating the time you shall spend studying for Phase1 and Phase 2 in your study plan.
Having comprehended the points above, let us move over to the table below:
Academic Qualification | No. of hours the student can study | Paper 1 : Above Average Paper 2 : Average / Above Average | Paper 1 : Below Average Paper 2 : Below Average |
---|---|---|---|
MBA / CAT / Banking Exam | < Three hours | 1 hour : Paper 1 2 hours : Paper 2 | — |
Three-Six hours | 1 hour : Paper 1 5 hours : Paper 2 | — | |
> Six hours | 1 hour : Paper 1 > 5 hours : Paper 2 | — | |
In College Graduate / Masters / CA, CFA, CWA / UPSC | < Three hours | — | 1 hour : Paper 1 2 hours : Paper 2 |
Three-Six hours | — | 2 hour : Paper 1 4 hours : Paper 2 | |
> Six hours | — | 2 hour : Paper 1 > 4 hours : Paper 2 |

RBI Grade B Exam Strategies
Study Sequence
- Take RBI Grade B Mock tests and solve previous years papers of Phases 1 & 2 to identify your strengths and weaknesses. Scores < 50% shall be considered poor.
- Categorize subjects falling under the strong and weak categories, after carefully evaluating which of them you are strong in and which of them you are weak in. Be honest.
- Divide the preparation time into week-wise phases. Select 2 subjects at a time, one that you are strong in, and the other you are week in.
- You can make use of ‘Spotlight’, ‘PIB247’, and ‘RBI 247’ to study current affairs.
- Attempt a test every week to improve your essay writing skills.

RBI Grade B Study Guide
- Take RBI Grade B Mock tests and solve RBI Grade B previous years papers of Phases 1 & 2 to identify your strengths and weaknesses. Scores < 50% shall be considered poor.
- Categorize subjects according to the ones you are strong at and the ones you are weak at. Do this after an honest evaluation of yourself.
- Divide the preparation time into weak-wise phases. Select 2 subjects at a time, one that you are weak at and the other that you are strong at. Say for example if you pick the subjects of quant and finance, you’ll find that quant ends in week 1 itself but Finance doesn’t. Therefore, for week 2 you can start with the next slot of finance and pick another subject that you are weak at.
- Current Affairs are a difficult subject to prepare. So to prepare for current affairs better you can focus on ‘Spotlight’, which is our monthly magazine for phase 1, and ‘PIB247’ and ‘RBI247’ for Phase 2. All three of these magazines are updated daily and are specifically designed for RBI Grade B exam preparation.
- You can prepare for English Descriptive essays of Phase 2 by taking 1 test every week. In case you choose to enroll for the course, your essays will be checked regularly and you will also be provided with constructive feedbacks that would help you improve your writing skills.
* It should be noted that the week-wise segmentation is based on the time it normally takes to finish certain topics.
Considering that every subject has a week 1, you need not cover all of them on that very week itself. Also, make sure to not attempt more than two subjects together at once.
With that, we come to the end of the segment of RBI Grade B preparations.
As I had mentioned at the starting of this segment with the help of the story about my athletic days, as soon as the preparation portion ends, you need to start assessing your opponent’s abilities by analyzing their past records.
The opponents, in this case, are the RBI Grade B exams and the previous records are the RBI Grade B exam analysis and RBI Grade B cut-offs.
Exam Analysis RBI Grade B
As I have already mentioned before, to ensure victory in any battle or sport, just the preparation from your side is not enough.
You also need to gauge the abilities of your opponents and also the playing/battlefield where the clash is to take place by analyzing the past years’ trends and records.
According to the subsequent findings you’ll get from the analysis you’ll become aware of how prepared you are and also know how much more effort you’d need to put in to ensure a sure-shot victory.
This is the formula you’d need to apply to ensure success in the upcoming RBI Grade B exam as well.
So, let’s begin with the RBI Grade B exam analysis of the year 2019.
2019 RBI Grade B Exam Analysis: Phase 1 (mostly moderate level questions)
In this section, I have given tables through which you can get an idea about the difficulty level of the questions asked in phase 1 of the 2019 RBI Grade B exam.
I have also provided for your benefit, the topics, and subjects that the questions belonged to.
Section | No. of MCQs | Good Attempts | Difficulty Level |
---|---|---|---|
General Awareness | 80 | 43-50 | Moderate |
English Language | 30 | 20-23 | Moderate |
Quantitative Aptitude | 30 | 17-21 | Moderate |
Reasoning Ability | 60 | 30-34 | Moderate |
Total | 200 | 120-130 | Moderate |