How to improve the reading speed to attempt English Section of Bank Exams?

Reading enhances and boosts your mental strength as exercises toughen your body. It’s truly a fact that reading helps you improve your English writing by introducing you to new interesting sentence structures. English is considered to be most influential and accepted international language. It has been a frontrunner in all communication modes and means. While cracking competitive Bank exams, the knowledge of English holds great significance, so it is very important to score well in English section. After the releasing of recruitment notifications by banks, from the post of Clerk/ Executives to the post of Probationary Officers, the banking sector has given millions of aspirants a dream opportunity to make their career.  The aspirants who couldn’t make it last time should strive for another attempt.

In this article, we will explain the tips to improve the reading speed to attempt English Section of Bank exams. The English section is broadly divided into four sections. All these sections test different skills of English Language. These groups are:-

1. Reading Comprehensions

This section comprises of passages which focuses on topics like Banking & Economy, Business, social or political issues etc. The students should properly understand idea, fact, inference and theme while answering the questions.

2. Grammar

This section consists of error Spotting, phrase replacement/ sentence correction, fill in the blanks.

3. Vocabulary

This section consists of error spotting, phrase replacement, cloze test (single passage with 5-10 questions), fill in the blanks (Double Blanks).

4. Verbal Ability

This section consists of Para Jumbles.

Before proceeding further, it is important that you should familiarize yourself with syllabus. It will help you to understand the detailing and intricacies of every topic. It will prepare you to understand and solve the difficulty levels of each topic.

So, let us discuss the tips and tricks to prepare each topic of English section.

Tips and Tricks for Reading Comprehension

Reading Comprehension can be your “knight in shining armor”, as it does not require any guesswork or grammar rules. The student has to look into the passage for the answers. This section offers holistic types of questions as it tests student’s ability of understanding to critically analyzing the given information. It also tests the grammatical skills, vocabulary and even writing skills of the students.

1. Take a Quick Look of the passage

The students are advised to maximize their reading speed. It is because their objective is to completely solve all comprehensions in the exam.  You should have a bird’s eye view to find out the overall context of the passage. In exam, there is scarcity of time, so there is no need to read the whole passage. Do pick up easier questions to solve.

2. Read the Questions First

Work sincerely on your Time Management Skills. Do plan a proper strategy of reading the question first and not waste time on reading the whole passage. Do read the needed lines to answer the questions asked in the Reading Comprehension and then compare it with the given options. If you find the correct answer then move towards the next question. While working on this strategy, you will find the theme, perception and background of the passage. You should not shy away from difficult questions as some of them are indirect questions or are inference based questions. The questions can also be vocabulary based or theme based. They are easier to solve or score, so attempt them first. The inference based questions are bit tougher so attempt them last.

5. Focus on Contents

It is important to focus and pay fullest attention on the contents of the passage. You should easily understand the subject, theme, content and perception of the passage. Your mind should not wander while reading it or else you will be wasting your precious time.

6. Improve your reading Speed

Let us discuss the technique to increase speed of reading. In this technique, we divide a line into two or three parts. You should never read word by word but rather read by group of words. It would increase your speed of reading by 60 to 70%. The common mistake committed by students is to trying to find the meaning of each word, which is not required. While reading a comprehension, you should be able to find out the meaning of each word by understanding the theme, central idea and flow of the paragraph. While reading, do not move your lips, as it will slow down your speed of reading. Do practice more and it will surely increase your speed of reading.

Tips and Tricks for Vocabulary

1. It’s a daily task to enhance your vocabulary. It can be done by reading articles in daily English newspapers, books, novels etc. Do make a list of peculiar, important and frequently used words. Do consult a dictionary to find its synonyms and antonyms of these words. Do start with Vocabulary section as this can be very scoring and test your knowledge by practicing sample papers. You should try to learn at least 20-25 new words daily with their synonyms and antonyms. It will build your strong word power. Do consult books on vocabulary which can enhance your word power.

Tips and Tricks for Grammar

In competitive exams, students carry a biggest misconception that if they read grammar rules then it is sufficient for them to attempt all questions. The problem starts when they think in their mother tongue and then try to translate the sentence back to English before using it. This type of problem causes them to make many mistakes and results in faulty grammar. The answer to this problem is to daily read English newspapers or books to make your brain subconsciously learn the rules of grammar.

In this reading practice, once you have read a whole bunch of uses of one particular word, you will get a sense to use it in your own sentence properly. Do not get lost in translation but try to think and converse in English regularly. Your spoken English skills can be enhanced further by watching English TV channels, English serials etc.  

If you are speaking English correctly then you will be more conscious of your grammatical skills. You should be familiar with the parts of speech as they are the basic blocks guaranteeing a proper structure to any sentence. You should also use sentence diagrams for remembering all the knowledge of grammar you have acquired.

Tips and Tricks for Verbal Ability

In competitive Bank exams, verbal ability will be tested with Para Jumbling questions. There are no simply techniques for solving para jumbling questions. Do come up with your approaches that suit you to solve them.

You should have good vocabulary strength. Hence, you should work harder on your vocabulary as it is useful for many topics in English section. The solution of solving these questions is to spot the theme of each jumble correctly.

If you understand the context properly then it will easier for you to solve verbal ability questions.

Finally, test your knowledge by taking as many tests and quizzes as possible. It will improvise your knowledge and time-management skills.

In this article, we have explained the tips and tricks of improving the reading speed to attempt English Section of Bank Exams. We have categorically explained the tips and tricks for various topics of English section. English section is very significant aspect of the exam, so it is important to follow these tips to score well in this section.

Wishing you all the Best for the exam!!!

Author : This content is written & published by IBT Pune - Best SSC & Bank Coaching instiutte.