Dear readers, I have some questions for you.
-Have you recently booked any ticket on IRCTC?
-How often do you travel to your favourite destination by long-distance Indian railways?
-When was the last time you travelled by a long-distance train/express?
-Is there a huge gap in your travel time (Probably 3-5 years)?
-Did you recently travel by Indian Railways?
If you have recently booked a train ticket on IRCTC and travelled by any long-distance Indian Railway, you would notice a huge difference in the way Indian Railway authority has improved it?s functions.
You may have seen the below improvements in the Indian Railways:
-Improved infrastructure - addition of various new coaches with potable drinking water, mobile charging points, bio-toilets, provision of cushioned luggage racks, 5-star waiting lounges, CNG train, showing toilet sign boards indicating that the toilet i occupied or not. etc.
-Privatisation of catering services
-Improved technology
-Set up of Wi-fi at close to 400 railway stations
-Revamp of IRCTC website (easy booking of tickets, Better navigation, features like showing probability of confirmation of tickets, etc.
Recently, there was a trial run of installing a train captain on the Bengaluru-Mangaluru. These train captains would be a single point of contact for all the passengers for any concerns for their current train journey.
This experiment of SWR (South Western Railway) zone was successful.
With such radical changes in the railway systems every year, it becomes mandatory for the Indian Railways to work hard on the job vacancies as well as recruitment. This depicts that Indian Railways is definitely one of the largest employment sectors in India.
Every year, Indian Railways conducts various exams to fill up vacancies for Group D jobs, ALP (Loco-pilots), ASM (Assistant Station Master, constables, sub-inspectors, etc.
Railway Police Force (RPF) is one such part of Indian Railways.
We would be emphasizing more on one such exam - RPF Exam for Constables and SI (Sub-Inspectors). I will walk you through the various scoring topics and also the tips to prepare for this exam. So, dear aspirants, put your thinking cap on and gear-up for the RPF exam preparation.
Online applications for RPF exams closed on 30th June. Exam date is not yet notified but they probably would be conducted in September or October. This year, there are a total of 9739 RPF vacancies - 8619 for constables and 1120 for Sub-inspectors (SI).
Candidates can appear for the exam in any of these languages - Hindi, English, Urdu, Tamil, Telugu, Konkani, Malayalam, Kannada, Marathi, Gujarati, Bengali, Odia, Punjabi, Assamese and Manipuri.
Please note that there?s 1/3rd negative marking for each incorrect answer.
RPF exam for Constables and SIs is conducted in three phases - CBT (Computer Based Test), PET (Physical Eligibility Test) and DV(Document Verification).
Syllabus for both the posts is almost the same. However, aspirants are advised to check the official website for complete syllabus and then start the exam preparation.
The Computer Based Test comprises three sections ?
-General Awareness
-Arithmetic
-General Intelligence & Reason
Below is the table which displays the most scoring topics from the CBT exam (Tier 1 exam) syllabus:
CBT Subject
Scoring Topic
Weightage(No of Questions)
Topics
Tips
General Awareness
Current Affairs
20-24
Sports,Business & Economy, Books & Author, Government Schemes & Policies, Days & Events,Polity, National Affairs, International Affairs, Geography, Appointments & Resignations, Person in News,Environment, etc.
Since current affairs section holds good weightage, it?s important for the aspirants to stay updated with the current news/events for at least last 4-5 months till the exam date.
General Awareness
General Knowledge
13-15
Indian Freedom Struggle, Art & Culture, Historical Places, Geography, General Science, Festivals, Languages, Dance & Music, Sports Awards, Capitals & Currencies, National Parks & Wildlife Sanctuaries, Wars & Battles, Rivers, Constitution of India, etc.
GK is another important topic from the perspective of RPF examination. Read GK capsules regularly. Time to time revision is must to remember facts and figures.
General Awareness
Banking/Finance Awareness
10-12
Basic Concepts of Banking, Banking Committee & Recommendation, RBI, People & Banks in News, Financial Inclusion, Monetary Policy, Indian Economy, Indexes & Reports, Banking Schemes & Policies, Banking Agreements & MOUs, Net Banking Schemes, Miscellaneous, etc
Learn all the basic definitions related to Banking. Also update yourself with recent changes, amendments, mergers etc in this sector.
Arithmetic
Simplification
7-10
BODMAS, Approx Value, Square Root, Percentage, Fractions, Reciprocals of Numbers, Decimals and Surds and Indices
Get the basic concepts very clear. Learning Maths tricks/Shortcuts is an add-on to quickly solve the questions.
Arithmetic
Data Interpretation
4-5
Tabular Graph, Pie Chart, Line Graph, Bar Graph, Miscellaneous
Such type of questions take up ample space. But don?t panic. Analyse the graph carefully and answer the questions accordingly. Keep your mind at peace and you?ll be able to solve these questions easily.
Arithmetic
Mensuration
3-5
Areas & volume of Square, Rectangle, Circle or Semicircle, Triangle, Rhombus, Trapezium, Parallelogram, Cone, Cylinder, Cube, Cuboid, Sphere, Right Prism, Tetrahedron, Pyramid
Understand the properties of the figures (Circle, semicircle, square, etc.( and remember the formulae, instead of blindly by-hearting them.
General Intelligence & Reasoning
Non Verbal Reasoning
5-6
Assemble Image, Mirror Image, Hidden Image, Completion of Incomplete Pattern, Cubes and Dice (Construction of Boxes, Problems on Dice), Paper Folding and Cutting, Missing Term, Counting Figures
Reasoning is the tricky and quite time consuming also. Read the question carefully and try to identify the pattern and the twist involved. Practice different type of questions to know tricks used to solve the questions.
General Intelligence & Reasoning
Statement & Conclusions/Statements & Interference/Statements & Assumptions/Assertion & Reasoning /Course of Action/Statements & Arguments
5-6
NA
No specific trick. Answering such types of questions completely depend on your understanding and assumptions.
General Intelligence & Reasoning
Puzzles
4-5
Quant based puzzle, Logical puzzle (Equation insert, BODMAS rule, Inequality, Coded logic), Seating Arrangement (Circular Arrangement, Linear Arrangement), Scheduling, Double Line up, Clock Calendar.
One wrong step in solving the puzzle will cost you. So, if you think you?re stuck at a particular step, then leave that question. Don?t waste much time on one question
General Intelligence & Reasoning
Series and Order and Ranking
9-10
Matrix & diagram related problems Number Series, Mixed Series, Alphabetic Series, General Knowledge Series.
Practice is the only key to such type of questions.
The above topics span almost 70% of the RPF exam. Since you have ample of time, you can easily ace the exam by studying properly and practicing more and more. After you cover the syllabus once, go through the online mock tests and analyse your weaknesses. Learn from these mistakes and again solve the mock tests.
Good luck for the exams!