RBI Grade B Syllabus

Phase 1 — General Awareness

Current affairs across the economy, banking, finance and general national and international developments; banking and financial awareness; government schemes; and static general knowledge. The largest section of Phase 1 by some margin, which makes a sustained current affairs habit the most efficient way to clear the screen.

Phase 1 — English, Quantitative Aptitude and Reasoning

Standard competitive-exam content: comprehension, error spotting and vocabulary; arithmetic, data interpretation and number series; puzzles, arrangements, syllogism and analytical reasoning. Pitched at a level a prepared banking candidate will find familiar.

Paper I — Economic and Social Issues

Growth and development, measurement of growth, income and wealth distribution, poverty alleviation and employment; the Indian economy since independence, planning, economic reforms and liberalisation, privatisation and globalisation; balance of payments, export-import policy and international economic institutions; inflation, monetary and fiscal policy; social structure in India, urbanisation and migration, gender issues, social justice and positive discrimination; education, health and human development. Read as economics, not as current affairs.

Paper II — English Writing Skills

Precis writing, comprehension-based responses and essay writing. The assessment is of your ability to read a text accurately, compress it faithfully, and construct an argument in clear, correct, well-organised prose within a time limit.

Paper III — Finance and Management

The financial system, its regulators and the role of the Reserve Bank; financial markets — money, capital, foreign exchange and government securities; financial institutions and instruments; risk management in the banking sector; derivatives, and basic accounting and financial statement concepts; corporate governance; alongside management theory covering the evolution of management thought, motivation, leadership, communication, organisational structure, corporate social responsibility and ethics.

The distinguishing feature of this syllabus is that it expects opinions to be supported. A descriptive answer on inflation targeting or on financial inclusion is assessed on whether you understand the mechanism and can argue about it, not on whether you can recall a definition. That is a reading and thinking task carried out over months, and it does not compress.

The clearest way to read this syllabus is to notice what it does not say. It does not list facts to be recalled; it lists areas to have a view about. Growth and development, poverty alleviation, social justice, the financial system, corporate governance, ethics in organisations — these are framed as fields of debate rather than bodies of information, and the descriptive components ask you to take a position within them and support it. That is a different activity from revision, and it needs a different kind of preparation.