General & Banking Awareness Exam – Topics to Prepare

Ever thought of answering questions from a subject that gets updated everyday?If not, then get ready to prepare for General knowledge a.k.a General awareness that has become an integral part of banking exams. With the IBPS CWE round the corner let us see the GA section & the type of queries asked in detail





* What is the full form of NPA?
* How many public sector banks does India have?
* What is the current base rate fixed by RBI?
* Who is the chairman of State Bank of India?
* How to denote ‘account payee’ on a cheque?

Questions like the above can be seen in the upcoming common written test as,

The clerk exam pattern has included a section ‘General Awareness with special reference to Banking Industry’. In this paper, apart from regular GK you can also expect questions about banks, say common PO exam attendees.

Topics to cover in banking awareness:

1. Base rate	6.0%
   Savings rate	4%
   Repo rate	8.25%

   Questions about RBI, its governor, recent rate hikes will be asked.Visit rbi.org.in & look for the current rates (see table for latest)
2. Latest technologies used in banking (Internet, Mobile & SMS banking)
3. Names of banks chairman/MD, RBI governor & important financial organizations
4. Terms used in banking field (like NEFT,RTGS,Repo rate,NPA etc.,)
5. Money instruments (cheque,DD,ATM,debit, credit cards etc) & how, when to use them.
6. Five year plans,recent developments in banking sector,mergers,Indian economy, policy decisions (newspapers & GK books will cover this) 
7. Of the 50 questions, atleast 20 would be related to banks.

General awareness: This is a vast subject but we have listed some must-read topics based on previous papers.

1. Names of popular people,govt. departments,building,rivers,projects
2. About the functioning of government (who reports to whom, job role etc.)
3. Population of India (poverty line,planning commission,census etc.,)
4. Recent news of importance (Lokpal,RTI,Telecom policy,CAG,CWG etc.,)

 
Prepare notes: You may have a good GK book & newspapers but it wont be possible to read them again during the final preparatory stage.Here are some tips that would help you to plan.

• Take notes while reading for the first time itself by writing hints & short sentences.
• Make sure its understandable as you wouldn't want to see a note that is hard to recollect at the time of revision.
• Glance through them everyday to avoid forgetting.

Start now: It can be very hard to memorize the dates, famous persons, abbreviations, definitions & numbers - all in one day.

• Preparations must be an ongoing activity.Incase you have not begun, allot 1-2 hours daily from today to read the materials & transfer them onto your scribble book.