A grab of the Testbook site

A group of IIT alumni has designed a website to help aspiring State Bank of India-probationary officers prepare for the online recruitment test next month.

For the first time, State Bank of India would conduct the probationary officer exam online on June 14. Sources said at least 20 lakh candidates would appear in the exam and many of them were not accustomed to computers.

To help not-so-tech-savvy candidates, the IIT alumni have come forward with the website www.testbook.com. Identical to the actual exam interface, it gives State Bank of India-probationary officer (SBI-PO) aspirants an opportunity to get used to the online exam format.

Ashutosh Kumar, an IIT-Bombay alumni and co-founder of the website, said: “For the first time, SBI is conducting the exam in an online format. A large percentage of the over 20 lakh aspirants are from small towns. As no platform is available where students can practise free online mock tests and judge their preparation, the site will prove handy for them.”

The team, which launched a similar practice site for GATE (Graduate Aptitude Test in Engineering) 2014 aspirants, has three more IIT-Bombay alumni and two IIT-Delhi alumni as members.

The SBI-PO aspitants have to answer questions on English, general awareness, data analysis and interpretation, and reasoning. Each section carries 50 questions. The practice papers on the SBI exam are set to a clock. As the timer reaches zero, the mock examination ends on its own.

Ashutosh, a 2012-batch graduate from IIT-Bombay, said the site has several mock tests prepared by banking experts keeping in mind the exam pattern. Candidates just have to log in to take the tests of different durations free of cost. Detailed solutions are also available to help the aspirants brush up their concepts.

He said: “At least 200 new aspirants join us daily.”

Snehil, who plans to appear in the SBI-PO examination on June 14, said: “The questions on the site are nicely categorised and are of good quality”

Ashutosh (24) added: “The website has an user-friendly interface when it comes to taking the mock tests. It would come handy on the test day.”