The 20-Minute Sectional Strategy: Maximizing Every Second in Your Exam

When it comes to a major bank recruitment test such as the SBI PO, IBPS PO, and RBI Assistant, time equals merit. With the implementation of a strict time allocation per section policy, the flexibility of switching between sections at will no longer exists. It means you get precisely 20 minutes to solve one section, be it quantitative aptitude, reasoning ability or English language, and that’s how you will make the most out of it. 

You want to answer each question to clear the preliminary stage. What is more important for you is the ability to get the maximum net score in 20 minutes. This article discusses how you can master the 20-minute sectional strategy. 

This kind of bank coaching will help you learn this strategy of giving 20 minutes to each section in an exam and make good use of time in the exam.

The 20-minute sectional strategy: maximizing every second in your exam

Phase 1: the 2-minute scan(scanning & prioritization)

The most common mistake that candidates commit is attempting to answer questions in a chronological manner. The very first two minutes must be completely devoted to scanning through the whole paper.

• Identifying the Low-Hanging Fruits: Find topics that you can do at maximum speed and accuracy. In quant, topics include simplification, approximation, number series, and quadratic equations. In English, it could be filler questions or error spotting. In Reasoning, it is inequalities and syllogisms.

• Mark It For Review: Identify those questions where you are sure that you can attempt them, but will take some time, like a regular puzzle question or an easy data interpretation set. Mark it as a review.

• Mental Mapping: Within the next two minutes, create a mental map of questions that need to be attempted and skipped.

Phase 2: the 10-minute blitz(securing the base score)

Minutes 3-12 cover only the generation of momentum and accumulation of easy marks. 

• Execute easy wins: tackle those easy wins that you have picked up on through your scanning. Because such questions do not involve much calculation or reasoning, you should be able to knock off 10-12 such questions in these 10 minutes.  

• The 45-second rule: drop any question that takes more than 45 seconds to figure out, or leaves you stuck while in the process of solving it. Emotional attachment to hard questions will kill your sectional cutoff. 

Phase 3: the 6-minute tactical advance(the differentiator)

With your basic score already in hand, from minute 13 to 18 is when you transcend the average and develop your competitive edge. 

• Tackle high-yield sets: this section is all about moderate difficulty questions that need some thought process-examples include data interpretation graphs, seating puzzles, or reading comprehension passages. 

• Accuracy is key: as most of these questions come in bunches of five, each correct answer adds up to a total of 5 marks. Take a deep breath, understand the constraints clearly, and keep away from any compilation mistakes.

Phase 4: the 2-minute clean-up(no negative marking risks)

The last two minutes are very crucial, and panic in these moments may affect your accuracy negatively. 

• Tie up loose ends: if you were working on some problem or sum in phase 3, try completing that and getting some marks for it. 

• Review singletons: solve independent problems that do not demand much time, such as vocab questions, RC, or basic miscellaneous sums that you have skipped. 

• Say no to blind guesses: due to the negative marking system, there should be no blind guesses at all in the last moments. A good and correct score is always better than an inaccurate and wrong one. 

With the correct SSC coaching, one can master the 20-minute strategy per section in an exam.

Conclusion 

A 20-minute sectional approach makes even a regular bank test an endurance test. It’s not about the one who has all the answers but about the one who can make the best decisions at any point in time. By segmenting your 20 minutes into a systematic scanning, blitzing, advancing, and cleaning-up process, you will be controlling the clock rather than being controlled by it.

Try this plan on your next couple of mock tests and analyze your weaknesses as far as time management is concerned.