Candidates always hover around the figures even if that is not required. They keep on asking one or the other guru, that how many I shall attempt to clear the exam. What can be a good number of questions?
So, it all boils down to, how many? Look, there is no one in this world who can give you a number which is an optimum figure ensuring you the desired success. Remember, there are two targets which people look for – First, ensuring that they score the minimum cut off so that they can get an interview call. Second, ensuring that they score so much that it gets them an offer. It has been evident from the past trends that candidates scoring close to cut off marks do not get the final offer, reason being, the ratio of the number of vacancies to the participants invited for interview is 1:3, that means if I assume that this year we are going to have 38000 vacancies in IBPS CWE Clerk, then around 1,14,000 candidates will be called for the interview. It also means that 76,000 of those called for the interview will not get the offer. So, the target should not be to get an interview call rather should be to score so much that you get a job. To understand it more precisely, look at the cut off ranges (varies from state to state) for the past four years :
2011 – 105 to 171
2012 – 52 to 105 (Written), 50.00 to 66.60 (Final)
2013 – 63 to 111 (Written), 34.60 to 64.40 (Final)
2014 – 80 to 133 (Written), 42.40 to 73.60 (Final)
The above data clearly shows that one can never be sure about what the minimum or maximum cut off will be. A simple reason is the difficulty level of the question paper. Let us consider the case where the maximum cut off has been as low as 105. This simply means that the question paper in that year was of higher difficulty level. When you see a difficult question paper, you don’t need to lose your nerve. Since most of you have done a good amount of preparation then you should not have a reason for not believing in yourself, for not being confident about yourself. If it is difficult for you, then it is difficult for the entire nation as well. So, the cut offs are likely to go down. The vice-versa is also true as the same can be seen in the cut offs of 2014. If the question paper is easy then you don’t need to be over confident as well, it simply means it is easy for the entire nation and cut offs will be higher this time.
The crux of the above discussion is one can never be sure that how many attempts would be enough. It totally depends on the difficulty level of the question paper and the performance of other candidates as well. So, going with a mindset that “I will attempt at least 130 questions or 110 questions or any figure like that†can hamper your performance. The suggested way is to go with a cool mind and give your best performance rather than pre-deciding your benchmarks.
All the best!! Rock On!!
