1. Eligibility Criteria:

Age criteria:

• For Indian Military Academy (IMA) age limit is between 19 to 24 years

• For Indian Naval Academy (INA) age limit should be between 19 to 22 years

• For Indian Air Force Academy (AFA) age limit should be between 20 to 24 years

• For Officer's Training Academy, the age limit is 19 to 25 years.

Qualification

I. For I.M.A. and Officers' Training Academy, Chennai — Degree of a recognized University or equivalent.

II. For Indian Naval Academy—Degree in Engineering from a recognized University/Institution.

III. For Air Force Academy—Degree of a recognised University (with Physics and Mathematics at 10+2 level) or Bachelor of Engineering.

Final Year Students - Candidates who are studying in the final year/semester Degree course and have yet to pass the final year degree examination can also apply.

Marital Status

• For Indian Military Academy, applicants should be- Unmarried

• For Indian Naval Academy, applicants should be- Unmarried

• For Air Force Academy, applicants should be- Unmarried

• For Officers Training Academy (SSC Men) applicants should be- Unmarried

• For Officers Training Academy (SSC Women Non-Technical courses)- Unmarried or issueless widowed or issueless divorcees who didn't remarry

Physical Standard

Candidates must be physically fit according to physical standards for admission to Combined Defence Services Examination as per guidelines.

A. The candidate must be in good physical and mental health and free from any disease/disability, which is likely to interfere with the efficient performance of duties.

B. There should be no evidence of weak constitution, bodily defects or underweight. The candidate should not be overweight or obese.

C. The minimum acceptable height for male candidates is 157.5 cms. (157 cms for Navy and 162.5 cms for Air Force). For Women candidate’s minimum acceptable height is 152 cms. 

Note: For Gorkhas and individuals belonging to hills of the North-eastern region of India, Garhwali and Kumaon, the Minimum acceptable height will be 5 cms less. In the case of candidates from Lakshadweep, the minimum acceptable height can be reduced by 2 cms.

D. The candidates should have a sufficient number of natural and sound teeth. A minimum of 14 dental points will be acceptable. When 32 teeth are present, the total dental points are 22.

Physical Conditioning: 

A. Running: 2 to 4 Km. in 15 minutes

B. Skipping

C. Pushups & Sit-ups: Minimum 20 each

D. Chin-ups: Minimum 08

E. Rope Climbing: 3 to 4 metres.

Visual Standard

Visual Standards for Army

Visual Standards for Navy

• Uncorrected without glass - 6/12

• Corrected with glass - 6/6

• Limits of Myopia - 1.5

• Limits of Hypermetropia +1.5

Visual Standards for Indian Air Force

• One must have 6/6 in 1 eye and 6/9 in the other, which can be correctable to 6/6 only for hypermetropia.

• Near Vision must be N-5 for each eye.

2. CDS Exam Pattern for IMA, INA & IAFA :

CDS Exam Pattern 2021 for OTA:

Important Details of the CDS Exam Pattern:

• The exam of CDS will be offline, i.e. through pen and paper mode.

• The question paper of Mathematics and General Knowledge will be set bilingually, i.e. in Hindi as well as English.

• All the tests will consist of objective type questions only. 

• English and General Knowledge sections will comprise 120 questions each, while the Mathematics section would contain 100 questions.

• There is a penalty for every wrong answer. 1/3rd marks will be deducted for every incorrect answer marked by the candidate.

• The help of the scribe will not be permitted to write the answers in the exam under any circumstances.

3. CDS Syllabus 

Here is the syllabus of the CDS exam for each individual section:

1. English Syllabus for CDS Exam

The aim of this section is to test the understanding of English as well as word usage by the candidates.

Questions in this section will be asked from the following topics :

• Fill in the blanks.

• Reading Comprehension.

• Vocabulary (Synonyms/ Antonyms/ Phrases).

• Sentence Rearrangement (Jumbled sentences).

• Spotting error.

• Sentence improvement/ Correction

2.  General Knowledge Syllabus for CDS Exam

This section aims to check how well the candidates keep up with the current events and how well they understand their surroundings, especially in reference to their scientific aspects.