Why was IBPS Clerk 2020 English Section Difficult??

IBPS Clerk 2021: Many aspirants consider the IBPS clerk exam not at par with the difficulty of SBI clerk. This is true for many reasons, but last year, IBPS had other plans. The English section is generally easy, but last year IBPS’ English section was a complete shocker. All the experts who give exams just to take an idea of the paper had to walk out with their faces covered, or students would have embarrassed them on the spot. And IBPS also has a sectional cut-off in place, which means you will have to score a minimum number of marks to surpass sectional cut-offs even if you clear the cut-off for the entire paper.    

The IBPS completely changed the pattern of questions and raised the difficulty level as if they were expecting CAT aspirants to be honest.   

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We have decided on last year’s paper by taking the example of a few questions.  

The English Syllabus for IBPS Clerk 2021

Reading Comprehension

Word Swap

Para Jumbles

Fill in the Blanks

Idioms and Phrases

Cloze Test

Error Spotting

Word Usage

Synonyms and Antonyms

Sentence Correction

Sentence Rearrangement

Reading Comprehension was a highly complex one

Below is the first paragraph of the reading comprehension – read it through, and you will realize that the language of the RC is quite challenging and would take a few readings to comprehend the passage correctly.   

“For a global hazard to really get respect these days, it must threaten Armageddon. Climate change, for instance, is the stuff of apocalyptic movies: it is about flooding, fire, and famine. The loss of biodiversity, on the other hand – the shrinking spread of species on the planet – ranks further down the scale. This is about dying bumblebees in Poland or fewer species of fish in the Red Sea or red squirrels being kicked out by grey ones. It is not the stuff of films starring Dennis Quaid as a divorced scientist who was right all along and tends to reach headlines as a worry mostly for the bees and squirrels involved (with perhaps a line or two from experts about the knock-on effects). It does not seem to threaten the rest of us.”  

As you can observe by reading the paragraph, the focus on vocabulary, word usage is quite evident. Too many references to explain a situation.    

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Error detection was one of a kind

The way they asked error detection questions was a slap in the face. It took students time to even realise if they were attempting a fill-in-the-blank question or a question based on error detection.    

Direction: In the given question, a part of the sentence is printed in bold. Below the sentence, alternatives to the emboldened part are given as (A), (B), (C) and (D), which may help improve the sentence. Choose the correct alternative out of the given five options. In case the given sentence is correct, your answer will be option (E), i.e.,”No correction required”.

Question: As the bus make a turn, it collided with the van.
A. making a turn
B. had made a turn
C. will be making a turn
D. made a turn
E. No correction required

If you read the question, the examiner has asked the question with a twist here. Nowehere does it mentioned that it’s an error detection based question. It just simply asks for an alternative. This can confuse you to wonder wether it’s ‘fill in the blank’ or an ‘error detection’ question.

Key Takeaways from English Section of IBPS Clerk 2020

• The reading comprehension is going to be tough in the coming year as well.
• The paper was deliberately made tough by adding elements that can raise the difficulty level of the questions.
• A majority of questions come from the passages, error detection, fill in the blanks, cloze test, sentence corrections, rearrangement, etc. However, with the unpredictability of IBPS, students must prepare for every topic. Take a free IBPS Clerk 2021 mock test today!

Conclusion

It is highly recommended that you prepare according to the level maintained by the IBPS in the previous year’s papers. Doing so will make sure that you aren’t exposed on the day of the exam by a tough section. You should be able to attempt questions without any hesitancy. Taking regular mocks of ParcticeMock can benefit you because we keep our mocks as close as the actual exams.   Take a free IBPS Clerk 2021 mock test today!

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