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In RBI Grade B Phase 1, General Awareness (GA) is 80 marks out of 200. That is 40% of the paper, and it is the one section where a well-prepared student can score 55–65 in about 25 minutes. The good news: GA questions are not random. The same topic areas come back every year; only the facts change.
I have gone through the memory-based papers of the last few cycles. Below is the pattern I see, and how I would prepare it if I were writing the exam in 2027.
Phase 1 at a glance
| Section | Questions | Marks |
|---|---|---|
| General Awareness | 80 | 80 |
| Reasoning | 60 | 60 |
| Quantitative Aptitude | 30 | 30 |
| English | 30 | 30 |
| Total | 200 | 200 (120 minutes, composite timing) |
- Negative marking: one-fourth of the marks for a wrong answer.
- GA questions are mostly one-liners, but many are statement-based (“Which of the following is/are correct?”).
The 10 topic areas that repeat
| # | Area | What they ask | Weight (approx) |
|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | RBI policies and circulars | Repo changes, new frameworks, payment system rules, KYC, digital lending | Very high |
| 2 | Banking and finance news | Mergers, licences, new products, NPA data, capital rules | Very high |
| 3 | Committees and their heads | Who chairs which panel; what it studies | High |
| 4 | Reports and indices | FSR, RBI Annual Report, Global indices and India’s rank | High |
| 5 | Government schemes | Launch year, ministry, benefit amount, target group | High |
| 6 | Budget and Economic Survey | Fiscal deficit target, capex, new missions | Medium |
| 7 | International organisations | HQ, head, new members, reports (IMF, WB, BIS, NDB, AIIB) | Medium |
| 8 | Regulators and appointments | Heads of SEBI, IRDAI, PFRDA, NABARD; RBI Deputy Governors | Medium |
| 9 | Agreements and summits | G20, BRICS, SCO, bilateral MoUs on payments | Medium |
| 10 | Static banking GK | Acts, sections, establishment years, HQs of banks | Low–medium |
Pattern I notice: sports, awards and defence get very few questions here, unlike IBPS exams. RBI wants an economic and financial news reader.
The 6-month window rule
Most current affairs questions come from the 6 months before the exam. If Phase 1 is expected around March–April 2027 (not official), your core window is roughly October 2026 to March 2027. Do this:
- Months 1–6 before the exam: read daily CA (our daily current affairs takes 20 minutes).
- Every Sunday: revise the week’s one-liners and take the weekly quiz.
- Last 30 days: revise only your notes and the monthly RBI & SEBI policy digest.
How to prepare each area
1. RBI policies
- Keep a one-page sheet of current rates: repo, SDF, MSF, CRR, SLR.
- For each new framework, note: what, for whom, from when, one number.
- Read RBI’s press releases list once a week. Five minutes is enough.
2. Committees
- Make a table with four columns: committee, chair, set up by, subject.
- Only note the committees from the last 18 months; older ones are rarely asked.
- Our list: important committees for RBI and SEBI 2027.
3. Reports and indices
- For each report: who publishes it and India’s rank or headline number.
- See India’s rank in global indices 2026.
4. Schemes
- Learn schemes as launch year + ministry + benefit. For example: PM-KISAN (2019, Agriculture, ₹6,000 a year).
- Our government schemes list has the main ones.
5. Static banking GK
This is the easiest scoring part. Revise:
A weekly routine that works
| Day | Task | Time |
|---|---|---|
| Mon–Sat | Daily CA + one-liners | 30 min |
| Wednesday | Update your committee and scheme sheets | 20 min |
| Saturday | Weekly quiz + mark wrong answers | 30 min |
| Sunday | Revise the whole week’s wrong answers | 30 min |
Common mistakes
- Reading everything, revising nothing. GA is a memory game. Revise each fact at least three times.
- Ignoring statement-based questions. Practise them; they need exact facts (numbers, years).
- Only reading newspapers. RBI’s own press releases are the source for many questions.
Practice
Related reading
Quiz: test yourself
Based on the RBI Grade B pattern as per the last notification and our reading of memory-based papers. Weights are approx.