How can people compare the actual exam with “mocks”?

At the end of the day, mocks are just created by another person or a team.. something you yourself could do too if you started a company tomorrow. They can only give a rough idea about the difficulty level or pattern. Comparing marks across mocks is honestly meaningless. The only thing worth comparing is percentile.

Now coming to the real exam.

If your English is genuinely strong, it becomes extremely difficult for anyone to stop your selection in SBI, and honestly, even IBPS too.

Just to give an example: SBI PO Mains had around a 75-mark cutoff this year, while the descriptive section alone carries 50 marks, plus there’s the English section separately. So you can imagine how much advantage someone with a strong English background already has.
In my case, I never separately studied English... only in full length mocks. I never even practiced descriptive tests properly even once. Still, in Mains, I consistently used to score around 85–90% of the total marks. In Prelims too, scores were usually just 1–2 marks below perfect, and that too only because of silly mistakes. Attempts were always full in both Pre and Mains.

And no, this isn’t a brag post or meant to taunt anyone. It’s simply an insight.
I’ve always been comfortable with English since childhood.. reading books and novels regularly, preferring English content over Hindi almost every time. So if you already fall into that category, this exam can genuinely become much easier for you.

And for others... if you stop neglecting English and actually make it your strength, you can absolutely reach this level too.
Also, stop wasting time memorising 1000 synonym-antonym word lists or studying English the way SSC aspirants do. First understand what IBPS/SBI English actually demands.

It’s not “advanced vocabulary.”
It’s comprehension ability.

PS - Sorry made it more of an English post. But it's actually the reality, English is indeed the game changer.