SBI reasoning guide
SBI reasoning: what is on the paper, and the daily routine that fits it
SBI PO prelims gives you 35 reasoning questions in a 20-minute sectional window, and SBI's puzzles usually sit a notch above IBPS's in difficulty — more variables, more floating constraints, more sets that punish a wrong early assumption. The best daily reasoning practice for SBI PO is therefore a short timed habit: one fresh seating or floor puzzle, a review of the clue that slowed you down, and one logged mistake pattern.
The pattern, stage by stage
SBI runs its own paper rather than following IBPS, and it revises the mains structure more often. The prelims shape has been stable; treat the mains row as the current baseline and check the notification.
| Paper | Section | Questions | Marks | Time |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| SBI PO Prelims | Reasoning Ability | 35 | 35 | 20 min (sectional) |
| SBI PO Mains | Reasoning & Computer Aptitude | 40 | 50 | 50 min |
| SBI Clerk Prelims | Reasoning Ability | 35 | 35 | 20 min (sectional) |
| SBI Clerk Mains | Reasoning Ability & Computer Aptitude | 50 | 60 | 45 min |
Question counts and timings follow the most recent official notifications. Exam boards do revise the pattern between cycles — confirm every figure against the current year's notification before you plan around it.
Which topics actually carry the marks
The topic list is the bank-exam standard. What differs at SBI is the depth of the puzzle sets and how often a question rewards case-testing rather than a single clean chain of deductions.
- Puzzles and seating arrangement. Dominant, and harder than the IBPS equivalent — expect three-variable sets, uncertain positions, and at least one set where you must carry two possible cases forward.
- Coding-decoding. SBI favours the new pattern, where the code is inferred from example sentences rather than given as a rule.
- Inequality and syllogism. Fast marks. Take them early in the 20 minutes so the clock pressure lands on the puzzles, not on these.
- Blood relations, direction sense, order and ranking. Short sets. Draw them; do not hold them in your head under a sectional clock.
- Data sufficiency and input-output. Mains, and a genuine difficulty step. Input-output rewards spotting the machine's rule in a single pass.
- Critical and analytical reasoning. Mains. Statement–assumption, cause–effect and course-of-action questions that are read carefully rather than solved quickly.
What to practise daily
- Warm up for two minutes. Read one solved example or yesterday's mistake note. Do not start with random scrolling.
- Solve one timed puzzle for five minutes. The daily serves one exam format per day — seating and floor boards, syllogisms, data sufficiency, series — so across a week you train constraint handling and every other reasoning skill under pressure.
- Review for five minutes. Which clue was the anchor, which clue did I ignore, and where did I guess?
- Log one mistake for two minutes. Keep a small notebook: "missed immediate-left clue", "mixed above/below", "did not test alternate case".
- Repeat tomorrow. SBI reasoning improves through consistency; one serious puzzle daily beats ten unfocused puzzles once a week.
What Deduce covers — and what it does not
Deduce is not a full course and it is not a replacement for mock tests. It is the daily practice layer: one fresh puzzle per difficulty, server-checked answers, limited attempts, streaks and a leaderboard. That makes it useful when you already understand the topic but need exam-speed deduction. Alongside it you still want a question bank for volume, sectional tests for the 20-minute clock, and full mocks for stamina and section-order strategy.
Free and paid practice PDFs
Free reasoning puzzle PDF →
20 exam-format reasoning puzzles with full solutions. No email, no sign-up — the file downloads directly.
The reasoning puzzle book →
100 seating and arrangement puzzles with worked solutions, for when the daily is not enough volume.
The other section
The other half of the paper has its own daily. ComputePrep's SBI quant guide covers the calculation side — same makers, same free-daily model.
Frequently asked questions
How many reasoning questions are in SBI PO prelims?
35 questions carrying 35 marks, with a 20-minute sectional limit. SBI Clerk prelims has the same 35-question reasoning section.
Is SBI reasoning harder than IBPS reasoning?
The syllabus is effectively the same. SBI's puzzle sets tend to carry more variables and more genuinely ambiguous starting positions, so the same topic takes longer to close. Practise for SBI and IBPS feels comfortable; the reverse is not reliably true.
Is one puzzle per day enough for SBI PO?
One puzzle per day is enough for a maintenance habit, not for your entire preparation. Add mocks and larger practice sets during peak preparation.
Should I solve easy or hard puzzles?
Both, on different days. Easy puzzles build the pattern recognition that makes hard ones tractable; hard puzzles are where you learn to carry two cases without losing the thread. A week that is all-hard mostly teaches you to feel slow.
In what order should I attempt the SBI reasoning section?
Take the standalone quick questions first — inequality, syllogism, blood relations, direction, order and ranking — then the puzzle set you can read fastest. Leave the longest set for last and be willing to abandon it; an unfinished five-question set costs the same as never starting it.
Related guides
IBPS reasoning guide · SSC reasoning guide · RRB reasoning guide · Reasoning puzzle types explained · How to get faster at seating arrangement puzzles · A daily reasoning routine for bank exams
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Deduce is not affiliated with IBPS, SBI, SSC, RRB or any other examination authority.