Combined Defence Services Examination

The Combined Defence Services Examination (abbreviated as CDS Exam) is conducted twice a year by the Union Public Service Commission for recruitment into the Indian Military Academy, Officers Training Academy, Indian Naval Academy and Indian Air Force Academy. The Notification for the examination is usually released in the months of October and June, and the examinations are conducted in February and November respectively. Only unmarried graduates are eligible to sit for the exam. Successful candidates are admitted into the respective Academies after an interview conducted by the Services Selection Board (SSB).

Age Limit

Indian Military Academy	19–24years[1]
Air Force Academy	19–24 years[1]
Naval Academy	19–24 years[1]
Officers’ Training Academy	19–25 years[1]

Educational Qualifications

CDS Exam Educational Qualifications[2] is given below.

For I.M.A. and Officers’ Training Academy	Degree from a recognized University or equivalent
For Indian Naval Academy	Degree in Engineering from a recognized University or equivalent
For Air Force Academy	Degree of a recognized University (with Physics and Mathematics at 10+2 level) or Bachelor of Engineering

Physical Standards

Candidates must be physically fit according to physical standards criteria given in the official advertisement.

Scheme of Examination

Applicants who will appear in the CDS exam should know the exam pattern of CDS 2020 so that they can qualify the exam with flying colors.

CDS Exam Pattern

Stages of exam	Written exam and SSB Interview
Mode of exam	Offline / Pen and paper based
Subjects	1- English 120 questions 2- General Knowledge 120 questions 3- Elementary Mathematics 100 questions
Exam duration	2 hours for each paper
Number of questions	340 MCQs for – IMA, INA AFA and OTA 240 MCQs for – OTA
Language of paper	English & Hindi (Both language except Hindi)

Union Public Service Commission will release the admit card of CDS any time soon in online mode at upsconline.nic.in. Since the exam is slated to be conducted on February 2, 2020 in offline mode. After downloading CDS 2020 admit card[3] candidates should check for any discrepancy and if found then immediately report it to the exam conducting authorities to get it rectified.

Indian Military Academy / Air Force Academy / Naval Academy

All the papers are of objective type.

Subject	Marks
English	100
General Knowledge	100
Elementary maths	100
Total	300

Officers' Training Academy

Each paper contains objective type questions.

Subject	Marks
English	100
General Knowledge	100
Total	200

Intelligence and Personality Test

The SSB interview process consists of a two-stage Selection process – stage I and stage II. Only those candidates who successfully clear the stage I SSB interview are permitted to appear for stage II.

(a) Stage I comprises of Officer Intelligence Rating (OIR) tests are Picture Perception* Description Test (PP&DT). The candidates will be shortlisted based on the combination of performance in the OIR Test and PP&DT.

(b) Stage II Comprises of Interview, Group Testing Officer Tasks, Psychology Tests, and the Conference. These tests are conducted over 4 days. The details of these tests are given on the Indian Army career portal[4].

The personality of a candidate is assessed by three different assessors viz. The Interviewing Officer (IO), Group Testing Officer (GTO), and the Psychologist. There is no separate weightage for each test. The marks are allotted by assessors only after taking into consideration the performance of the candidate holistically in all the tests.

Test/ Interview by Air Force Selection Board

All candidates who apply for the Air Force through more than one source will be tested/interviewed at the Air Force Selection Boards only once for Air Force. Common candidates who fail in Computer Pilot Selection System (CPSS) and/ or Pilot Aptitude Battery tests as an NCC or Airmen candidate will be called again for OLQ testing for Army/Navy/OTS only if it is found that they have applied through CDS Exam.

CDS I 2020 Vacancy

Academy	Total Vacancies
IMA	100
AFA	32
INA	45
OTA (Men)	225
OTA (Women)	16
Total	804

CDS II 2020 Vacancy

CDS 2 2020 Total number of vacancies[5] are given below.

Academy	Total Vacancies
IMA	100
AFA	32
INA	26
OTA (Men)	169
OTA (Women)	17
Total	344

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References

"Forthcoming Exams" (PDF). UPSC. 15 September 2016. Retrieved 21 March 2019.
"UPSC CDS all details".
"CDS Admit Card: How to download".
"Join Indian Army official website".
"UPSC CDS official notification".

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[upsc.gov.in-1] "Forthcoming Exams" (PDF). UPSC. 15 September 2016. Retrieved 21 March 2019.

[2] "UPSC CDS all details".

[3] "CDS Admit Card: How to download".

[4] "Join Indian Army official website".

[5] "UPSC CDS official notification".