cds study plan

CDS Study Plan

cds online coachingClearing CDS exam is all about a study plan. When you decide that you will join the Indian Defence Forces after your graduation, then you plan for cds. For cds preparation, what come in your mind, simply either you starting preparing by self or you join any coaching institute. Even most of the coaching institutes don’t offer the exact & well structured study plan. But we want to stop you here for few minutes only to read this article for the best strategy to prepare you for the cds written exam. So before moving ahead, we want to brief a summary about cds.

Combined Defence Services Exam is a national level competitive exam which is conducted by UPSC for recruitment into Indian Military Academy, Indian Naval Academy, Air Force Academy and Officers Training Academy. To read more about cds exam click here.

It offers another crucial chance for all those aspirants who have completed their graduation in distinct branches. It is the next opportunity for the candidates after NDA, which offers an exciting career in defence services - IMA, INA, AFA & OTA on the graduation basis. UPSC conducts CDS Written Exam twice a year, Generally CDS I exam is conducted in month of February or in April & CDS II is conducted in month of September or in November. Next CDS written exam will be held on Sunday, 21st April, 2024.

Now come to the point how to crack cds or cds study plan. We are summarized this important topic into 6 points. So read out the 6 key points for the best preparation of cds.

  1. Exam Pattern & Syllabus: We just want to give a reminder on these things because you must be aware of cds exam pattern & cds syllabus. But before moving ahead kindly makes sure that there is not change in the cds exam pattern & syllabus although it is very rare.
  2. Cut-Off: This is the very important key point among all these. You must be aware of how the cut-off is made. This is not a fix kind of thing. It has been changed in every exam by upsc. Mainly the cut-off depends upon the no. of students appeared in exam, difficulty level of the questions & the marks obtained by the candidates in exams. After completion of every exam, upsc release the cut-off, kindly go thru the upsc website or visit our cds cut off page. CDS 1 2018 Written exam cut-off is given below.
    S.No Academy Cut Off
    1 OTA (Women) 69
    2 OTA (Men) 69
    3 IMA 118
    4 INA 98
    5 AFA 138

    You can see that the cut-off for OTA is around 35% & for IMA/INA/AFA the cut-off is around is 46%. What does it means? It clearly means that in cds 1 2018 exam those students who scored minimum 46% able to clear IMA/INA/AFA & similarly those scored 35% minimum able to clear OTA. This clearly indicates that you don’t need to focus on 100% topics & syllabus to clear cds minimum cut-off. So you can decide a range that how much percentage of syllabus & topic you plan to prepare well to crack cds written exam.

  3. Topics Selection: This is the connecting point of above. Since you have to crack the cds exam in minimum time frame as exam is at your door. To do a good preparation in minimum time, you need to know the weightage of subjects & topics of all three subjects. For this, get at least 3 to 5 previous years cds paper analysis. Arrange them in a table & select those which you seem easy & from which most of the questions are asked. Now starts preparing only those topics you have selected.
  4. Preparation Level: While most of the students give their 100% effort & dedicated their precious time to prepare themselves for cds written exam, but they don’t get the results as expected. Why this happen? What’s gone wrong? This may be quite frustrating for many of the students. This situation can be avoided if this point has been taken in consideration before starting the cds preparation. We must research the standard of the questions of Maths, GK & English, asked in cds written exam. This can be done by doing a deep analysis of cds previous year question paper. If you purchase any online or offline study material & test series, kindly take their demo or free version first & verify that those questions are of cds standard. If you join a coaching institute then take the demo class first & keep your eyes on the standard of questions & teaching.
  5. Quality Study Hours: While you are preparing for any competitive exam, there is a huge rush & competition among the candidates. On most of occasion, you ignore this point that for a sure success in any competitive exam, especially like cds, more than lakhs of students, you can consider that almost all graduate from science, arts, commerce even from IT & computer science apply for cds, since every one think of getting a defence Jobs. So to become winner among all you need to perform best & for this you need to spend more time on you study. Simply you can calculate that from the 24 hours, how much time you are spending on your quality study. So you need to think on this point & start giving more time & focus on your study. 
  6. Practice: This point tells the next key point after quality study hours. You have heard this from most of the students saying that ‘Yaar, Jaanta Tha Fir V Galti Ho Gayi’ (done mistakes besides knowing the answers). Do you know why this happens? Simple! Because lack of practice. You know the proverb ‘Practice makes a man perfect”. Yes, do the more & more practice & this will guarantee you that you will do the best in your exams.
We hope above information will able to help you for the best cds preparation strategy. We wish you all the best for upcoming cds written exam & ssb interview.