IBPS RRB Office Assistant Syllabus 2026: Prelims and Mains, Test by Test

This page sets out what the Institute of Banking Personnel Selection says will be tested for Office Assistant (Multipurpose) in Regional Rural Banks under CRP RRBs XV, notified on 1 September 2026. One thing first: IBPS does not publish a topic-wise syllabus for this exam. The notification names the tests and stops there. So this page keeps two things apart: what IBPS has put in writing, and a working topic list that is ours.

What IBPS specifies

Stage	Test	Questions	Marks
Prelims	Reasoning	40	40
Prelims	Numerical Ability	40	40
Mains	Reasoning	40	50
Mains	Computer Knowledge	40	20
Mains	General Awareness	40	40
Mains	English Language or Hindi Language	40	40
Mains	Numerical Ability	40	50

That table, from clause D of the notification, is the whole official syllabus. Timings and the penalty for wrong answers are on the exam pattern page.

The notification adds that "other detailed information regarding the online examination will be given in Information Handout", which candidates download with the call letter. As of 13 November 2026, IBPS had published that handout for the Officer Scale I Preliminary exam but not yet for Office Assistants.

What the official sample questions show

The Scale I Preliminary handout of 9 November 2026 is for the sister paper in the same recruitment, with the same two-test, 80-question structure. It carries five sample questions per test. They are the only official window into question types in this cycle so far, so here is what they are, described rather than reproduced:

Reasoning samples

1. Relative positions of towns (which one is farthest west), a direction and ordering question.
2. Position in a row after two people swap seats, a ranking question.
3. Rearranging the letters of a word to form a meaningful word.
4. An alphabet question where letters are mirrored (A with Z, B with Y) and you find a position from the right.
5. Swapping adjacent letters of a word and locating a letter.

Quantitative samples

1. Selling price for a target profit after adding transport, duty and handling costs.
2. Divisibility (which number can be an exact multiple of 4).
3. A simplification with fractions and a missing number.
4. and 5. Two questions on a table of percentages (data interpretation).

IBPS attaches a warning to these samples: the types are "only illustrative and not exhaustive", and the actual exam may have questions of a higher difficulty level and of types not mentioned. Remember also that the handout is for Quantitative Aptitude in the officer paper, while your test is called Numerical Ability. IBPS does not say how the two differ.

Our working topic list

Everything from here to the end of the topic lists is Pareeksha's own working list, built from the test names, the sample types above and the general shape of clerical-level banking aptitude papers. It is not an IBPS document. Use it to plan, and expect the paper to stray from it.

Reasoning (Prelims and Mains)

• Arrangements and puzzles: linear rows, circular seating, floor and box puzzles, scheduling by day or month, puzzles with two or three variables.
• Ordering and ranking: position from left and right, comparison of heights, weights or marks.
• Direction and distance.
• Blood relations: statement-based and coded.
• Coding and decoding: letter shifts, number codes, sentence-based codes.
• Alphabet and number series: letter positions, pairs of letters in a word, rearranging digits, alphanumeric and symbol series.
• Word formation from given letters.
• Inequalities: direct and coded.
• Syllogism: two and three statements, "only a few" and possibility-type conclusions.
• Classification and analogy.
• Data sufficiency on any of the above (more likely in Mains).
• Input and output and simple statement-based reasoning (more likely in Mains).

Our reading: puzzles and seating arrangements come in sets of four or five questions, so one set solved or abandoned moves your score more than any single stand-alone question.

Numerical Ability (Prelims and Mains)

• Simplification and approximation: BODMAS, fractions, decimals, percentages of numbers, squares, cubes and roots.
• Number system: divisibility, factors and multiples, LCM and HCF, unit digits.
• Number series: missing term and wrong term.
• Percentage, ratio and proportion, averages.
• Profit, loss and discount.
• Simple and compound interest.
• Time and work, pipes and cisterns.
• Time, speed and distance: trains, boats and streams.
• Ages, partnership, mixtures and alligation.
• Mensuration: area and perimeter of plane figures, volume and surface area of basic solids.
• Data interpretation: tables, bar graphs, line graphs, pie charts and short caselets.
• Quadratic comparison and quantity comparison (more likely in Mains).

Our reading: the 20-minute Prelims timer rewards calculation speed above everything else. Simplification, series and one data set are where most candidates collect marks quickly, and no calculator is allowed.

General Awareness (Mains only)

• Current affairs of roughly the last six months: national and international events, appointments, awards, sports, summits, government schemes, reports and indices.
• Banking awareness: the Reserve Bank of India and its functions, types of banks, Regional Rural Banks and their sponsor-bank structure, NABARD, priority sector lending, financial inclusion, common banking terms and abbreviations, digital payments.
• Economy basics: budget terms, inflation, monetary policy vocabulary.
• Static general knowledge: capitals and currencies, headquarters of organisations, national parks, dams, important days, books and authors.
• Agriculture and rural development in outline, given the employer.

This is a 15-minute test for 40 questions. It is recall, not calculation, so it is the one place in Mains where preparation converts into marks at about 22 seconds a question.

Computer Knowledge (Mains only)

• Fundamentals: generations and types of computers, input and output devices, memory and storage units.
• Software: operating systems, system and application software, file management.
• Office tools: word processing, spreadsheets and presentations, including common keyboard shortcuts.
• Networking and internet: LAN and WAN, protocols in outline, browsers, email, search engines.
• Security: viruses, malware, phishing, firewalls, safe banking practices.
• Databases in outline and number systems (binary, decimal).
• Common abbreviations and recent terms in banking technology.

Note the marks: 40 questions for only 20 marks. Each is worth half a mark.

English Language (Mains, option 4a)

• Reading comprehension: passage-based questions, vocabulary in context.
• Cloze test and fill in the blanks.
• Error spotting and sentence improvement.
• Para jumbles and sentence rearrangement.
• Vocabulary: synonyms, antonyms, word usage, word swap, phrase replacement.
• Grammar: tenses, subject-verb agreement, articles, prepositions, conjunctions.

Hindi Language (Mains, option 4b)

• अपठित गद्यांश (passage comprehension).
• वाक्य में त्रुटि and वाक्य सुधार.
• रिक्त स्थान की पूर्ति and cloze passages.
• वाक्य क्रम व्यवस्था (sentence rearrangement).
• शब्द ज्ञान: पर्यायवाची, विलोम, अनेक शब्दों के लिए एक शब्द, वर्तनी.
• मुहावरे और लोकोक्तियाँ.
• व्याकरण: संधि, समास, कारक, वचन, लिंग in applied form.

English or Hindi: how to choose

The notification treats the two as equal: 40 questions, 40 marks, 30 minutes each. Our suggestion is to decide early and by evidence. Attempt one timed set of each and keep the one where your accuracy is clearly higher. Changing the choice late costs weeks. Check also what the application form recorded, because that governs the test you are shown.

How to use this syllabus

1. Prelims first. Reasoning and Numerical Ability are the entire Prelims and half the Mains marks, so they get most of your hours until the Prelims date.
2. Start General Awareness now, in small daily doses. It cannot be crammed after the Prelims result, and it is one of the five Mains tests (40 of the 200 questions).
3. Treat Computer Knowledge as a short, finite subject. A few weeks of steady revision covers it. Do not let it take time from Reasoning.
4. Test each topic when you finish it. Pareeksha's topic-wise practice is organised by topic. A free 10-question mini-mock lets you try the format, and Daily Dangal is a free daily quiz. Full mocks, previous-year papers and topic practice are Pro.
5. Re-read the handout when it arrives. When IBPS posts the Office Assistant handout with your call letter, compare its sample types with your plan.

What this page does not have

• An official topic list. IBPS has not published one for Office Assistants, in the notification or anywhere else we could open.
• The Office Assistant information handout for CRP RRBs XV. It was not on ibps.in on 13 November 2026. The sample types above come from the Officer Scale I handout of the same cycle.
• Official sample questions for the Mains tests (General Awareness, Computer Knowledge, English, Hindi). The Preliminary handout covers only the two Preliminary tests.
• Topic-wise weightage. IBPS does not publish it, and we do not quote counts from memory-based papers on this page.
• Any statement of how Numerical Ability differs from Quantitative Aptitude. The notification uses the two names without defining them.

Related: Exam pattern and marking · Cut-offs · Preparation strategy