In this guide
- Who this plan is for
- The hours budget
- Months 1–2: foundations
- Months 3–4: speed and mains topics
- Months 5–6: mocks, revision and the exam
- A daily structure (full-time)
- A daily structure (working aspirant)
- A weekly structure
- If you fall behind
- Worked example: re-planning after a lost fortnight
- Self-test: are you on track?
- What to do next
Six months is enough time to prepare seriously for SBI PO from a standing start, if you use it in the right order. The order matters more than the hours. Aspirants who spend four months "finishing the syllabus" and then discover mocks usually find their speed is nowhere near exam level. Aspirants who start mocks in week one, before they know the methods, burn out on low scores.
The plan below builds method first, then speed, then exam temperament, with checkpoints so you know whether you are on track.
Who this plan is for
- About five to six hours a day, six days a week.
- Graduation-level English and school-level maths, but no serious bank-exam preparation yet.
- If you are working, stretch each stage by a few weeks and use the working-aspirant timetable below. Our guide to preparing with a job goes further.
The hours budget
Six months is about 26 weeks. At six days a week and five and a half hours a day, that is 26 × 6 × 5.5 = 858 hours. A sensible split:
| Area | Share | About how many hours |
|---|---|---|
| Quant and DI | 30% | 257 |
| Reasoning (with computer aptitude) | 27% | 232 |
| English | 18% | 154 |
| Awareness (banking, economy, current affairs) | 18% | 154 |
| Descriptive writing and Phase III | 7% | 60 |
Quant and reasoning get the most because they need the longest to build and carry the most mains marks per question. English gets more than many plans give it, because it is 40 of the 100 prelims questions.
Months 1–2: foundations
Aim: learn the methods for every prelims question type, and build calculation speed.
| Section | Focus |
|---|---|
| Quant | Tables to 30, squares to 50, cubes to 20, fraction–percentage equivalents; simplification; number series; quadratic comparisons; arithmetic chapters one by one |
| Reasoning | Inequality, syllogism, coding–decoding, direction, blood relations, order and ranking; one easy puzzle daily |
| English | Daily editorial reading (20–30 minutes); grammar rules for error spotting; fillers and phrase replacement |
| Awareness | A one-page daily news note; banking basics: RBI, types of accounts, payment systems, monetary policy tools |
Checkpoint at the end of month 2:
- You can solve every prelims question type, even if slowly.
- In sectional tests, you clear a reasonable score in each section at least half the time.
- Your awareness notebook has around 50 daily entries.
Months 3–4: speed and mains topics
Aim: bring prelims speed to exam level, and start mains-only topics.
| Section | Focus |
|---|---|
| Quant | All DI types (table, bar, line, pie, caselet, missing data); data sufficiency; quantity comparison |
| Reasoning | Multi-variable puzzles; input–output; critical reasoning; computer aptitude |
| English | RC with inference and tone; cloze; para jumbles including fixed-sentence types; column matching |
| Awareness | Monetary policy, NPAs, Basel norms, financial inclusion, government schemes; a monthly current affairs summary |
| Descriptive | One email and one situation analysis a week, typed and timed |
Start full prelims mocks at the beginning of month 3, one or two a week, and a mains sectional once a week from month 4.
Checkpoint at the end of month 4:
- Full prelims mock scores are consistently in the top part of your mock series, with 85–90% accuracy.
- You finish a DI set of five questions in about seven or eight minutes.
- You have written at least 12 emails and situation analyses.
Months 5–6: mocks, revision and the exam
Aim: exam temperament. By now, most gains come from better selection and fewer silly errors, not from new topics.
| Focus | Detail |
|---|---|
| Prelims mocks | Three or four a week in month 5; daily in the last three weeks before the prelims |
| Mains preparation | One mains sectional a week until the prelims; after it, two or three full mains mocks a week with the descriptive test |
| Awareness | Revise the full six months of notes twice; the last four months matter most for current affairs |
| Descriptive | Add reports and précis; practise all three tasks in 30 minutes |
| Phase III | Draft your introduction and "why SBI" answer; read about the group exercise and psychometric test |
A daily structure (full-time)
| Time | Activity |
|---|---|
| 1.5 h | Quant or DI: a concept block, then 20–30 questions |
| 1.5 h | Reasoning: two puzzles plus a set of small topics |
| 1 h | English: 20 minutes of reading, then questions |
| 1 h | Awareness: daily news note plus one banking topic |
| 30 min | Error review: redo every question you got wrong today |
A daily structure (working aspirant)
| Time | Activity |
|---|---|
| Morning, 1 h | Quant or reasoning, alternating days |
| Commute or breaks, 30–45 min | Awareness reading and vocabulary |
| Evening, 1.5 h | The other of quant and reasoning, plus English |
| Weekend | One full mock and its analysis each day; descriptive practice |
A weekly structure
- Six study days; one lighter day for revision and rest.
- One full mock at the weekend: prelims-level in the first four months, mains-level later.
- A weekly review in writing: three things that improved, three things to fix, and which topic gets extra time next week.
If you fall behind
Almost every plan slips: an illness, a family event, a college exam. When it happens:
- Do not double your hours to catch up. It lasts three days and then you lose a week to fatigue.
- Move the missed topics into next month's list.
- Protect three things without a break: daily awareness, one DI set a day, and the weekend mock.
- Cut, don't skip. If time is short, drop the lowest-priority topics (mensuration, rare reasoning types) rather than whole sections.
Worked example: re-planning after a lost fortnight
Suppose an aspirant loses the second half of month 3 to illness. They had planned to cover caselet DI, missing DI, input–output and critical reasoning in that fortnight. A workable re-plan:
- Month 4 now carries caselet and missing DI alongside its own DI topics; data sufficiency moves to the first week of month 5.
- Input–output moves into month 4; critical reasoning is practised in 20-minute blocks on weekends.
- Weekly prelims mocks resume as soon as the aspirant is well. They are the checkpoint, so they are not dropped.
- Awareness and daily DI continue unchanged.
The six-month total loses about 66 hours (2 weeks × 6 days × 5.5 hours), under 8% of the budget, which can be absorbed without abandoning any section.
Self-test: are you on track?
- At the end of month 2, can you solve a quadratic comparison in under a minute? You should be close to that.
- At the end of month 4, is your full-mock accuracy above 85%? If not, cut attempts and fix concepts before adding more mocks.
- Have you typed at least one email and one situation analysis every week since month 3? If not, start now; the descriptive paper has its own cut-off.
- Can you name the current repo rate and the last three major RBI announcements? If not, your awareness routine needs daily time, not weekend bursts.
What to do next
- Count six months back from the expected prelims date and write the month boundaries in your diary.
- Fill in your own hours budget using the table above.
- Read the syllabus analysis before month 1 ends, and set up a mock routine before month 3.
A note on dates and numbers. Exam patterns, vacancies and schedules change from year to year. Always confirm the current details in the latest notification on the State Bank of India website .
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