IBPS RRB (Officer & Assistant) Syllabus 2026

Pattern below is from the official IBPS notification for CRP RRBs XIV (2025-26, the latest completed cycle). Per the official IBPS tentative calendar dated 16.01.2026, CRP RRBs XV prelims are scheduled for November 2026 (Officer Scale-I) and December 2026 (Office Assistant); confirm any pattern change from the XV advertisement on ibps.in once released.

SELECTION STAGES

- Office Assistant (Multipurpose): Prelims + Mains. No interview — final merit is prepared from Mains marks alone.

- Officer Scale-I (Assistant Manager): Prelims + Mains + Common Interview.

- Officer Scale-II (Manager) and Scale-III (Senior Manager): Single-level online exam + Interview.

All papers are online (computer-based), objective type.

PRELIMINARY EXAM — OFFICE ASSISTANT

- Reasoning — 40 questions, 40 marks, 25 minutes

- Numerical Ability — 40 questions, 40 marks, 20 minutes

Total: 80 questions, 80 marks, 45 minutes (sectional timing).

PRELIMINARY EXAM — OFFICER SCALE-I

- Reasoning — 40 questions, 40 marks, 25 minutes

- Quantitative Aptitude — 40 questions, 40 marks, 20 minutes

Total: 80 questions, 80 marks, 45 minutes (sectional timing).

Prelims is qualifying only: you must clear the cut-off in BOTH tests; these marks do not count in the final merit.

MAINS EXAM — SAME STRUCTURE FOR BOTH POSTS

- Reasoning — 40 questions, 50 marks, 30 minutes

- Computer Knowledge — 40 questions, 20 marks, 15 minutes

- General Awareness — 40 questions, 40 marks, 15 minutes

- English Language OR Hindi Language (choose one) — 40 questions, 40 marks, 30 minutes

- Numerical Ability (Assistant) / Quantitative Aptitude (Officer-I) — 40 questions, 50 marks, 30 minutes

Total: 200 questions, 200 marks, 120 minutes. Minimum score required in each test.

INTERVIEW (Officer posts only)

- 100 marks; qualifying 40% (35% for SC/ST/OBC/PwBD).

- Final merit for Officers = Online Exam : Interview in 80:20 ratio.

NEGATIVE MARKING

- 1/4th (0.25) of the marks assigned to the question is deducted for every wrong answer, at every stage. Unattempted questions carry no penalty.

NORMALIZATION

- Scores across multiple sessions are normalized by the equi-percentile method.

LANGUAGE OF EXAM

- Office Assistant and Officer Scale-I papers are available in English, Hindi and the regional language(s) of the state applied for (e.g. Telugu, Tamil, Bengali, Marathi, Odia, Punjabi, Gujarati, Kannada, Malayalam, Assamese, Urdu, Manipuri, Konkani). The English/Hindi Language test in Mains appears only in its own language.

IBPS defines only the test structure in the official notification; the topic lists below reflect the areas these tests have consistently drawn from in recent CRP RRB cycles.

PRELIMS + MAINS CORE SUBJECTS

REASONING (Prelims 40 Q / Mains 40 Q)

- Seating arrangement — linear and circular

- Puzzles — floor, box, scheduling, comparison-based

- Syllogism, Inequalities

- Coding-Decoding, Blood Relations, Direction Sense

- Order and Ranking, Alphanumeric Series, Alphabet Test

- Statement and Assumption, Statement and Conclusion, Statement and Argument

- Cause and Effect, Decision Making, Assertion and Reason

- Analogy, Odd One Out, Word Formation, Figure Series

NUMERICAL ABILITY / QUANTITATIVE APTITUDE (Prelims 40 Q / Mains 40 Q)

- Simplification and Approximation

- Number System, HCF and LCM, Decimal Fractions

- Ratio and Proportion, Percentage, Average, Partnership

- Problems on Ages, Profit and Loss

- Simple Interest and Compound Interest

- Time and Work, Time, Speed and Distance

- Permutation and Combination, Probability

- Quadratic Equations, Number Series

- Data Interpretation — tables, bar graphs, line graphs, pie charts, caselets

MAINS-ONLY SUBJECTS

GENERAL AWARENESS (40 Q)

- Current affairs of the last 5-6 months — national and international

- Banking awareness: RBI structure and functions, monetary policy, repo/reverse repo, CRR/SLR

- Banking history, banking terms and abbreviations, types of accounts and cheques

- Financial institutions — NABARD, SIDBI, regional rural bank structure and amalgamation

- Union Budget, Economic Survey, fiscal and monetary policy basics

- Government schemes, especially rural, agriculture and financial-inclusion schemes

- Agriculture and rural economy of India

- Awards and honours, books and authors, sports, countries-capitals-currencies, national parks and sanctuaries, UNO and international organisations

ENGLISH LANGUAGE (40 Q, optional against Hindi)

- Reading Comprehension

- Cloze Test, Fill in the Blanks

- Error Spotting, Sentence Correction, Phrase Substitution

- Para Jumbles and Sentence Rearrangement

- Synonyms and Antonyms, One-Word Substitution

- Idioms and Phrases, Commonly Misspelled Words

HINDI LANGUAGE (40 Q, optional against English)

- Vyakaran (grammar) — sandhi, samas, ling, vachan, karak

- Gadyansh (unseen passage / comprehension)

- Rikt sthan ki purti (fill in the blanks)

- Vakya sanshodhan and error detection, spelling (vartani)

- Paryayvachi and vilom shabd (synonyms and antonyms)

- Muhavare aur lokoktiyan (idioms and proverbs)

COMPUTER KNOWLEDGE (40 Q)

- Computer fundamentals; history and generations of computers

- Hardware and software basics, input and output devices

- Operating system basics, MS Office (Word, Excel, PowerPoint)

- Internet and networking basics, email

- Database basics (DBMS)

- Computer security tools, viruses and malware

- Number systems and conversions, computer languages

- Computer abbreviations and keyboard shortcut keys

OFFICER SCALE-II / III (single-level exam)

- Same subject families, with Financial Awareness in place of General Awareness and Quantitative Aptitude with Data Interpretation; Officer Scale-II (Specialist) has an additional Professional Knowledge test of the concerned discipline.