Combined Defence Services Examination
The Combined Defence Services Examination 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.
Age Limit
Educational Qualifications
CDS Exam Educational Qualifications 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 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.https://competition.careers360.com/articles/cds-exam-pattern CDS Exam Pattern
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 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.Stage I comprises of Officer Intelligence Rating tests are Picture Perception* Description Test. The candidates will be shortlisted based on the combination of performance in the OIR Test and PP&DT.
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 website www.joinindianarmy.nic.in.
The personality of a candidate is assessed by three different assessors viz. The Interviewing Officer, Group Testing Officer, 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.