If you are preparing for PFRDA Grade A 2026, previous-year Descriptive English questions should be an important part of your preparation strategy.
Previous-year questions do much more than tell you what was asked earlier. They reveal the nature of topics, expected depth, writing style, difficulty level and range of issues that candidates should be prepared to handle.
PFRDA’s latest available official Phase II material confirms that Paper 1 tests English drafting skills through Essay Writing, Precis Writing and Reading Comprehension. The official 2025 information handout also contains illustrative questions for these components.
For 2026 aspirants, the key lesson from previous papers is simple:
Do not prepare only pension and finance topics.
PFRDA Descriptive English has covered or illustrated themes ranging from financial literacy and inflation to technology, employment, education and broader socioeconomic issues.
This Bank Whizz guide analyses the PFRDA Grade A Descriptive English Previous Year Questions and explains how aspirants should use them for preparation.
Important: PFRDA’s official information handouts provide illustrative sample questions, while many actual previous-year examination questions available publicly are memory-based/reconstructed.
PFRDA Grade A Descriptive English: What Is Tested?
The latest available official PFRDA recruitment material describes Phase II Paper 1 as an English test designed to assess writing skills, including expression and understanding of the topic, through areas such as Precis Writing, Essay Writing and Comprehension.
The official 2025 Phase II handout identifies:
Essay Writing
Precis Writing
Reading Comprehension
It also clearly states that the sample question types provided in the handout are illustrative and not exhaustive, meaning candidates should prepare for variations in difficulty and question style.
Therefore, PYQ preparation should focus on patterns and skills, not merely memorising old answers.
PFRDA Grade A 2025 Descriptive English Questions
The 2025 examination provides the most recent reference point for aspirants.
Bank Whizz’s post-examination analysis recorded the paper as comprising Essay, Precis and Reading Comprehension, with a total duration of 60 minutes. The questions reported after the examination were memory-based. (Bank whizz)
Essay Writing
Reported 2025 themes included areas such as:
- Artificial Intelligence/modern development
- Learning from unhappy customers in business development
- Higher education and internships
- Development/modernisation-related issues
The exact wording reported by different post-exam sources varies slightly, which is another reason candidates should treat reconstructed PYQs as memory-based rather than official verbatim questions. (Bank whizz)
What Does This Tell Us?
The paper was not restricted to pensions.
Instead, it tested awareness and analytical writing across:
Technology + Business + Education + Development
This is an extremely important preparation lesson for PFRDA Grade A 2026.
PFRDA Grade A 2025 Precis Writing
The 2025 Precis passage was reported to focus on Japan’s demographic challenges, including issues related to its population structure and technological response. (Bank whizz)
This is useful because it demonstrates that a Precis passage can be drawn from a broad contemporary issue.
You should therefore practise passages covering:
Economy
Demography
Technology
Finance
Governance
Social Development
Environment
Employment
Do not prepare Precis Writing by trying to predict the passage topic.
The skill being tested is your ability to:
Understand → Identify → Filter → Paraphrase → Compress
PFRDA Grade A 2025 Reading Comprehension
The Reading Comprehension passage was reported to concern the mismatch between human evolutionary traits and modern society.
Reported questions required candidates to discuss and analyse ideas such as evolutionary mismatch, modern relationships, food and movement environments, social media, and difficulty dealing with long-term abstract risks.
This tells us something important.
Descriptive RC is not merely:
Find the sentence → Copy the sentence
Questions can require:
Understanding + Interpretation + Analysis + Written Expression
Therefore, your RC preparation should include analytical and inferential questions, not merely factual ones.
PFRDA Grade A 2022 Previous Year Questions
Publicly available reconstructed 2022 material reports Essay topics including:
1. India’s Rich Cultural Heritage
This is a broad social and cultural topic.
2. Pros and Cons of Trading and Investing
This represents the finance/investment category.
3. Impact of Inflation on Poor and Marginalised Sections
This combines:
Economy + Inflation + Social Impact
These reported topics again demonstrate the breadth of PFRDA Essay Writing.
A candidate preparing only NPS, pensions and retirement security would have been inadequately prepared for such diversity.
PFRDA Grade A 2021 Previous Year Questions
Reconstructed previous-year material for 2021 reports Essay themes including:
Financial Literacy and Inclusive Economy
Climate Change and Global Food Security
Cooperative Movement and Rural Development
Cybersecurity
The same reconstructed material reports a Precis passage on the circular economy and Reading Comprehension relating to the urban-rural divide in India.
Look at the diversity:
Finance → Environment → Rural Development → Technology → Economy → Social Development
This is precisely why topic prediction alone is not enough.
What Does the Official PFRDA Handout Show?
Alongside reconstructed previous-year questions, candidates should study the official sample questions.
The 2025 PFRDA Phase II Information Handout provides two illustrative Essay options:
One asks candidates to suggest measures for addressing illiteracy in India.
The other asks candidates to analyse the relationship between computerisation and unemployment.
These are not actual 2025 examination Essay questions.
They are official illustrative questions.
That distinction matters.
However, they provide excellent evidence about the kind of analytical writing ability PFRDA expects.
What Previous Year Questions Reveal
When we combine official illustrative material with reported previous-year papers, several preparation patterns emerge.
1. Topics Can Be Broad
PFRDA does not mean:
Only Pension Questions
Candidates need broader awareness.
2. Economy and Finance Matter
Financial literacy, inflation, investment and inclusion are natural preparation areas.
3. Technology Is Important
Computerisation, Artificial Intelligence, cybersecurity and technological change deserve serious attention.
4. Social Issues Cannot Be Ignored
Education, employment, rural development, inequality and inclusion can form important themes.
5. Contemporary Issues Matter
The examination can connect descriptive writing with developments affecting society and the economy.
Build Your 2026 Topic Preparation Around Clusters
Instead of memorising 50 essays, create six preparation clusters.
Cluster 1 – Pension & Social Security
Prepare:
NPS, retirement security, pension inclusion, ageing population, informal-sector social security
Cluster 2 – Economy & Finance
Prepare:
Inflation, savings, investment, financial literacy, financial inclusion, economic growth
Cluster 3 – Technology
Prepare:
AI, automation, cybersecurity, FinTech, data privacy, digital transformation
Cluster 4 – Social Issues
Prepare:
Education, employment, women empowerment, inequality, skill development
Cluster 5 – Development & Governance
Prepare:
Rural development, governance, consumer protection, institutional accountability
Cluster 6 – Environment
Prepare:
Climate change, sustainable development, green finance, sustainability
This provides enough breadth to handle unfamiliar topics.
Don’t Memorise Previous-Year Answers
This is one of the biggest mistakes candidates make.
Suppose an earlier question deals with inflation.
Do not memorise one 250-word Essay and wait for it to repeat.
Instead, prepare the Inflation Idea Bank:
Meaning
↓
Causes
↓
Impact on Households
↓
Impact on Poor Sections
↓
Savings and Investment
↓
Policy Response
↓
Way Forward
Now you can adapt that knowledge to several questions.
Similarly, one strong AI framework can help you answer questions on:
AI & Employment
AI & Financial Services
AI & Regulation
AI & Productivity
Responsible AI
That is strategic preparation.
Use PYQs for Precis and RC Too
Do not reduce PYQ analysis to Essay topics.
Precis and Reading Comprehension reveal equally important patterns.
For Precis, analyse:
Passage Difficulty → Central Idea → Supporting Arguments → Compression Opportunities
For RC, analyse:
Factual Questions → Analytical Questions → Inference → Explanation → Answer Length
Previous papers should teach you how to think, not merely what topics to read.
The Bank Whizz PYQ Method
For every previous-year paper, follow:
ANALYSE → CLASSIFY → ATTEMPT → EVALUATE → CORRECT → ADAPT
Analyse
Understand what the question demands.
Classify
Identify the theme and question type.
Attempt
Write under realistic conditions.
Evaluate
Identify weaknesses in content, structure and language.
Correct
Rewrite weak portions.
Adapt
Create two or three new questions from the same theme.
This transforms one PYQ into multiple learning opportunities.
Final Strategy for PFRDA Grade A 2026
PFRDA Grade A Descriptive English Previous Year Questions should be treated as a preparation roadmap rather than a prediction tool.
The evidence from official sample material and reconstructed previous papers shows substantial diversity across:
Finance + Economy + Technology + Social Issues + Development + Environment
Therefore, prepare broadly.
Study previous questions.
Understand recurring themes.
Build flexible Idea Banks.
Practise Precis passages from varied subjects.
Answer analytical Reading Comprehension questions.
Most importantly:
Write the PYQs yourself under time pressure.
Reading ten previous papers cannot substitute for writing one seriously.
At Bank Whizz, our recommended cycle is:
PYQ → Attempt → Evaluation → Error Analysis → Rewrite → Topic Variation
Previous-year questions tell you where the examination has been.
Your preparation must build the ability to handle where it may go next.
Study the past. Understand the pattern. Prepare for the unexpected.
Bank Whizz – Descriptive English मतलब Bank Whizz.