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Banking | RBI Grade B

English Language for RBI Grade B

RBI Grade B sets 33 English Language questions for 130 marks across 2 stages, so it is worth planning your preparation around the topics below.

33 questions130 marks6 topics

How to approach English Language in RBI Grade B

Reading comprehension and the cloze test decide this section, and both reward reading widely more than memorising rules. Build a daily reading habit, learn to spot the grammatical error patterns that recur, and treat vocabulary as something absorbed in context rather than crammed from a list.

Weightage in the paper

How much English Language is worth in each RBI Grade B stage, from the official pattern.

StageQuestionsMarksTimeShare
Phase I: Preliminary Examination3030—15%
Phase II Paper II: English (Writing Skills)31001 hr 30 min100%

English Language syllabus for RBI Grade B

Every topic in the official syllabus. The linked ones open a set of solved questions you can practise straight away.

  • Reading comprehension on economic and policy themes
  • Cloze test and para jumbles
  • Error spotting and sentence correction
  • Précis writing
  • Essay writing on economic, financial and social subjects
  • Comprehension-based descriptive answers

Sample English Language questions with solutions

Written to the RBI Grade B pattern, with the answer key and the method behind it — a look at how the section is actually set before you drill the full topic sets.

Vocabulary · solved example

India's shift to digital payments has been fastest where it was least expected: among small merchants who once dealt only in cash. A vegetable seller who a decade ago would have waved away anything but coins now displays a printed code and is paid in seconds. The convenience is real, but so is a quieter change in behaviour. Because every digital rupee leaves a record, a seller who accepts them builds, without meaning to, a history of sales that a lender can read. For the first time, a trader with no property to pledge has something a bank will look at. Yet the same visibility cuts both ways. A record that can earn a loan can also attract a tax notice, and many small sellers, sensing this, keep one foot in cash. The state gains an unprecedented view of the informal economy; the citizen weighs the benefit of credit against the cost of being seen. What looks like a simple story of technology spreading is really a negotiation, still unsettled, over how much of a small trader's life the system should be able to observe.

Which word is most nearly OPPOSITE in meaning to 'convenience' as used in the passage?

  • Benefit
  • DifficultyCorrect
  • Comfort
  • Ease

Solution

Convenience means ease or comfort, so its opposite is difficulty. The other three are close synonyms of convenience.

Cloze test · solved example

Cities are, on average, several degrees warmer than the countryside that (1)____ them, a difference that widens on still summer nights. Much of this extra heat is (2)____ by concrete and asphalt during the day and released slowly after dark. Trees offer a cheap (3)____: their canopies block sunlight before it reaches the pavement, and the water they give off cools the surrounding air. Yet tree cover in many fast-growing cities is (4)____, cleared for roads and buildings faster than it can be replanted. Planners who once treated greenery as mere decoration are now coming to (5)____ it as basic infrastructure.

Choose the word that best fits blank (1) in the passage.

  • surroundsCorrect
  • abandons
  • resembles
  • precedes
  • warms

Solution

The countryside lies around the city, so it 'surrounds' it. The verb is singular to agree with 'countryside'. Abandons, resembles, precedes and warms make no sense for the relation between a city and the land around it.

Reading comprehension · solved example

The volume of digital retail payments in India has grown at a pace few regulators anticipated, and the instrument responsible is one that charges the customer nothing. That design choice was deliberate: a payment system carrying no fee for the payer spreads faster than one that does. It also created a problem that has not been solved. Someone must still pay for the servers, the fraud checks and the settlement guarantees, and with the customer exempt and the merchant discount rate on small transactions set at zero, the cost has settled on the banks that sponsor the system. They have absorbed it so far because a customer who pays digitally is a customer whose deposits stay within the bank, and the deposit is worth more than the processing cost. This logic holds while volumes are concentrated in large banks with cheap deposits. It weakens sharply for smaller institutions, which carry the same per-transaction cost against a costlier deposit base. Regulators are therefore being pressed to permit a fee somewhere in the chain, and are reluctant, because every proposal so far shifts the charge to the merchant, and the merchants most sensitive to it are the small ones whose adoption the system was built to win.

Which of the following best expresses the central argument of the passage?

  • Digital retail payments in India have grown faster than regulators expected.
  • The zero-fee design that drove adoption left the system's costs unfunded, and every remedy proposed so far falls on the very participants it was built to attract.Correct
  • Smaller banks should not be permitted to sponsor digital payment systems.
  • A merchant discount rate should be levied on all transactions regardless of size.
  • Customers would accept a small transaction fee if the reason for it were explained.

Solution

The passage moves in three steps: the free-to-customer design spread quickly, that design left the cost with the sponsor banks, and the fixes now on the table push the charge onto small merchants and small banks. Option B is the only one that carries all three. Option A states the opening fact but not the argument built on it, and a central argument must include the tension the author develops. Options C and D are policy positions the author never takes, and D runs against the caution in the final sentence. Option E introduces customer willingness, which the passage does not discuss at all.

Sentence improvement · solved example

Choose the option that best replaces the underlined part. If no change is needed, choose 'No improvement'. He is senior _than me_ by three years.

  • to meCorrect
  • from me
  • than mine
  • over me
  • No improvement

Solution

'Senior' is followed by 'to', not 'than': 'He is senior to me by three years.' The Latin comparatives (senior, junior, superior, prior) all take 'to'.

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Practise English Language

Untimed drills with the method shown after every question — the step between learning a topic and sitting it under a clock.

Sit English Language under a real clock

English Language shows up in every RBI Grade B mock test, in the same interface, with sectional locking and negative marking.

  • Hard-only sprint: General Awareness (25 questions)

    25 questions | 20 min

    Start

  • RBI Grade B: 28-question practice mock

    28 questions | 28 min

    Start

  • RBI Grade B: full-length mock (200 questions)

    200 questions | 2 hr

    Start

Frequently asked questions

How many English Language questions are asked in RBI Grade B?

RBI Grade B 2026-27 cycle sets 33 English Language questions for 130 marks, split across 30 in the Phase I: Preliminary Examination and 3 in the Phase II Paper II: English (Writing Skills).

Is there negative marking for English Language in RBI Grade B?

Yes. RBI Grade B deducts one fourth of a mark for each wrong answer, English Language included, so unsure guesses cost you. One fourth of the marks assigned to a question is deducted for a wrong answer.

Which English Language topics matter most for RBI Grade B?

The RBI Grade B syllabus lists Reading comprehension on economic and policy themes, Cloze test and para jumbles, Error spotting and sentence correction, Précis writing, Essay writing on economic, financial and social subjects, Comprehension-based descriptive answers. Weight your revision towards the ones you are weakest on and confirm the emphasis against the paper analysis for recent cycles.

How can I practise English Language for RBI Grade B free?

Every English Language question on this site is free and written to the exam pattern. Use the topic drills for instant-feedback practice, the daily quiz to keep the section warm, and the RBI Grade B mock tests to sit it under a real clock with negative marking.