SNAPSHOT -2019 CDS EXAM

The Combined Defence Services (CDS) Exam is conducted twice a year (Feb and Nov) for recruitment into one of the following wings of INDIAN ARMED FORCES.

a) Indian Military Academy (IMA), Dehradun

b) Indian Naval Academy (INA), Ezhimala

c) Indian Air Force Academy (AFA), Hyderabad

d) Officers Training Academy (OTA), Chennai.

Anyone who is in the final year of graduation or has completed graduation can write the CDS exam. The analysis, as shown below, is for the exam conducted on 4th Feb2018 (Sunday).There were three test areas -ENGLISH, GENERAL KNOWLEDGE and ELEMENTARY MATHEMATICS. Each test area was conducted for a time period of 120 mins. The exam was conducted in Paper Pencil Mode.

The broad summary of the three test areas is as indicated below.

Let us analyze the different types of questions from each of the test area along with the overall difficulty level of each of the test area.

ENGLISH

As shown in the table below, this test area comprises questions from Reading Comprehension, Synonyms, Antonyms, Fill in the blanks, Cloze passages etc.A total of 120 qs (with a total of 100 marks) has to be attempted in 120 mins. Each question carried equal marks. For any question wrongly answer marked, one-third of the marks assigned to that question was deducted as penalty. Any net score above 60 marks (out of a maximum possible 100) is considered to be very good.

GENERAL KNOWLEDGE

As shown in the table below, this test area comprises questions from History, Geography, Polity, Economy, Science, Current Affairs etc A total of 120 qs (with a total of 100 marks) has to be attempted in 120 mins. Each question carried equal marks. For any question wrongly answer marked, one-third of the marks assigned to that question was deducted as penalty. Any net score above 35 marks (out of a maximum possible 100) is considered to be very good.

ELEMENTARY MATHEMATICS

As shown in the table below, this test area comprises questions from various areas. More than 50% of the questions were from areas -Trigonometry, Geometry, Mensuration and Numbers. A total of 100 qs (with a total of 100 marks) had to be attempted in 120 mins. Each question carried one mark. For any question wrongly answer marked, one-third of the marks assigned to that question(0.33 marks)was deducted as penalty. Any net score above 35 marks (out of a maximum possible 100) is considered to be very good.Those who would have done adequate practice would have found the questions quite doable. The success in this particular test area depended on one's basic conceptual skills, and calculation skills. Overall, the test area can be classified as MODERATE- DIFFICULT.