Government · Central · Institute of Banking Personnel Selection (IBPS)
IBPS Probationary Officer / Management Trainee
Prelims marks never enter the merit list. Three locked 20-minute rooms only decide whether you get to sit the exam that counts.
What this exam is
One application, eleven public sector banks. The 2026 cycle — CRP PO/MT-XVI — opened on 1 July with 6,715 indicative posts, and an official corrigendum on 20 July raised that to 7,365: the largest probationary-officer intake in five cycles, against 3,049 in 2023 and 5,208 in 2025. IBPS does not publish how many people apply for PO, so the competition ratio you see quoted everywhere is an estimate, not a number the body has released.
The structure catches beginners out. Prelims marks are used only to shortlist — they contribute nothing to selection. And prelims is not one paper but three sealed rooms: 20 minutes for English (30 questions), 20 for Quantitative Aptitude (35), 20 for Reasoning (35), with no way to carry a spare minute from one into another. You must clear a cutoff in each section as well as overall. The 2025 general cutoff was 49.21 out of 100, and with a quarter of a question's marks taken back for every wrong answer, that bar does most of the eliminating. Note the asymmetry too: Reasoning pays 40 marks for 35 questions, Quant only 30 for the same 35.
Selection is decided by Mains and the interview at 80:20 — and Mains changed shape in 2026. The objective paper grew from 145 questions to 170 in the same 160 minutes. General and Banking Awareness expanded to 50 questions for 60 marks; objective English was cut to 20 marks, less than the 25-mark descriptive paper that follows it — a paper IBPS says may be evaluated by an automated scoring mechanism. A Reasoning question is now worth 1.5 marks and an English question 0.5, so where you spend a minute matters more than how many questions you finish.
Who can sit it
- A degree in any discipline from a recognised university, with the result declared on or before 21 July 2026 (59.99% counts as below 60% — fractions are not rounded)
- Age 20–30 as on 1 July 2026, i.e. born between 2 July 1996 and 1 July 2006
- Upper-age relaxation: OBC-NCL +3, SC/ST +5, PwBD +10, ex-servicemen with 5+ years' service +5
- No limit on attempts anywhere in the notification — the age band is the only ceiling
- Fee ₹850 including GST; ₹175 for SC, ST and PwBD candidates
- Indian citizens; subjects of Nepal or Bhutan and specified migrants need a Government of India eligibility certificate
The paper, stage by stage
| Stage | Section | Questions | Marks | Time |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Prelims | English Language — English medium only | 30 | 30 | 20 min, locked |
| Prelims | Quantitative Aptitude — 0.86 marks a question | 35 | 30 | 20 min, locked |
| Prelims | Reasoning Ability — 1.14 marks a question; a sectional cutoff applies to each of the three tests | 35 | 40 | 20 min, locked |
| Mains · objective | Reasoning (the old 'Reasoning & Computer Aptitude' label was dropped in 2025) | 40 | 60 | 45 min |
| Mains · objective | General / Economy / Banking Awareness — including digital & financial awareness and RBI circulars | 50 | 60 | 35 min |
| Mains · objective | English Language — English only; 0.5 marks a question | 40 | 20 | 35 min |
| Mains · objective | Data Analysis & Interpretation | 40 | 60 | 45 min |
| Mains · descriptive | Essay & Comprehension — English; may be evaluated by a validated automated scoring mechanism | 2 | 25 | 30 min |
| Personality Test | Self-report profile placed before the interview panel — non-qualifying, but you cannot sit the interview without appearing | — | No marks | — |
| Interview | Minimum 40% to qualify (35% for SC/ST/OBC/PwBD). Final merit = mains : interview at 80 : 20 — prelims contributes nothing | — | 100 | — |
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What value should come in place of x? 45% of 640 + 3/8 of 480 = x + 218
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Common questions
IBPS PO — frequently asked
Who conducts IBPS PO?
IBPS Probationary Officer / Management Trainee is conducted by Institute of Banking Personnel Selection (IBPS).
When is the next IBPS PO exam?
The 2026 cycle is live and prelims are days away — 22–23 August per the official IBPS calendar, mains on 4 October, allotment in January 2027. Every one of those dates carries IBPS's own 'tentative' label; the notification itself commits only to the months. The rhythm is steady year to year: notification at the end of June, prelims in August, mains in October, final allotment in mid-January — about six and a half months end to end.
How many vacancies or seats does IBPS PO have?
7,365 indicative across 11 banks (2026, revised 20 July); 5,208 in 2025.
What is the IBPS PO exam pattern?
The paper is Prelims 100; Mains 170 objective + 2 descriptive. Timing: Prelims 60 min (3 × 20-min locked sections); Mains sitting 3 h 10 m.
Is there negative marking in IBPS PO?
0.25 of that question's own marks per wrong answer — prelims and mains objective.
What is the eligibility for IBPS PO?
A degree in any discipline from a recognised university, with the result declared on or before 21 July 2026 (59.99% counts as below 60% — fractions are not rounded) Age 20–30 as on 1 July 2026, i.e. born between 2 July 1996 and 1 July 2006 Upper-age relaxation: OBC-NCL +3, SC/ST +5, PwBD +10, ex-servicemen with 5+ years' service +5 No limit on attempts anywhere in the notification — the age band is the only ceiling Fee ₹850 including GST; ₹175 for SC, ST and PwBD candidates Indian citizens; subjects of Nepal or Bhutan and specified migrants need a Government of India eligibility certificate
How many candidates appear for IBPS PO?
Not published by IBPS for PO (~11 lakh applications reported for 2026, unconfirmed).
Which languages is IBPS PO available in?
English & Hindi; English sections and the descriptive paper in English only.
What is the IBPS PO syllabus?
The paper covers Puzzles & seating arrangement — around 20 of 35 reasoning questions, Data Interpretation: table, line, bar, caselet, missing, Simplification & approximation, Number series and quadratic comparison, Arithmetic: percentage, ratio, profit & loss, time & work, speed, Inequality, syllogism, blood relations, coding-decoding, Reading comprehension, cloze test, error spotting, para jumbles, Banking & financial awareness, RBI functions and circulars, Monetary policy, government schemes, six months of current affairs, Essay and comprehension writing for the descriptive paper.
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Honesty note: Adversarial verify pass pending (agent budget) — both question keys manually re-solved and confirmed. Every scheme fact here (sectional timing, the 0.25-of-assigned-marks penalty, the 2026 mains rebalance, 80:20 merit, equi-percentile normalisation, eligibility, fees) was read directly from the official IBPS notification PDFs for cycles XIV, XV and XVI. Conflicts we resolved in the open: vacancies are published as 7,365 because that is the figure in the official Annexure I dated 20.07.2026 — coaching portals claim 7,565 after UCO Bank reportedly added 200 posts, and no corrigendum for it was found on ibps.in. The 22–23 August prelims dates come from the official IBPS calendar and are tentative; the notification itself says only 'August 2026'. Portals reported the registration window being extended to 26 July — no official notice supports that, so it is not shown. IBPS publishes no PO-specific applicant or attendance data; the ~11 lakh figure is a coaching portal's. Cutoff numbers are compiled by two independent trackers from candidate scorecards, not from any IBPS document. IBPS also publishes no topic-level syllabus — the topic list and the 20-of-35 puzzle weighting are prep-community analysis of memory-based papers.
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