RBI Grade B Preparation

A plan for a descriptive exam

1. From day one — read economics seriously, daily. A business newspaper, the Economic Survey, RBI publications and monetary policy statements. This is the core of the exam and it takes months.
2. From day one — general awareness for Phase 1. Eighty of two hundred marks in the screen, and it overlaps with the reading you are already doing.
3. From month one — write one answer a day, timed. Even before you feel ready. Writing badly and improving is the process; waiting until you know enough is how candidates arrive unpractised.
4. Months one to four — Finance and Management as a taught subject. Financial markets, regulation, risk, and management theory. Study it, do not skim it.
5. From month two — weekly precis practice. The most trainable part of Paper II.
6. Month four — Phase 1 mocks at the RBI weighting. Enough to clear the screen comfortably, and no more.
7. Throughout — form views and be able to defend them. This serves the descriptive papers and the interview equally.

The characteristic mistakes

• Preparing for Phase 1 as though it were the exam — its marks are discarded entirely.
• Studying ESI and Finance as awareness topics — they are academic subjects, and the papers ask you to analyse rather than recall.
• Never writing a full answer until the exam — the most common and most costly omission.
• Over-weighting quantitative aptitude — thirty marks in Phase 1 and nothing thereafter.
• Neglecting the interview — it carries real weight and rewards the same reading the papers do.