Plan of the Examination of CDS 2023

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  1. The examination will be: Written Examination
  2. Interview for the personality test of the candidates, as directed by the Commission.

Examination Subjects

The subjects for the written examination are quoted below-

Scheme of Exam

The Examination in all the subjects will be of Essay type.

Indian Military Academy or Air Force Academy or Naval Academy

All the papers are of objective type i.e. … MCQs and with a time duration of 2 hours.

Subject and Marks-

  • English: 100
  • General Knowledge: 100
  • Elementary Mathematics: 100
  • Total: 300

Officers ′ Training Academy

All the papers are of objective type i.e. … MCQs and with a time duration of 2 hours.

Subject and Marks-

  • English: 100
  • General Knowledge: 100
  • Total: 200

Interview

For all three (OTA, IMA and NA) the marks for interview will be of 300 marks.

Candidates who have passed the written exam will be then called for an interview by a Services Selection Board which judges a candidate՚s suitability for a career in the Indian Armed Forces. The SSB interview will be for a week, during which a candidate will go through various different physical and psychological tests to understand whether or not he is officer material. Candidates cleared by the SSB are ultimately admitted into the above quoted academies and after the training got over, candidates are inducted into the armed forces.

Assessment

Armed forces provide a very exciting career to young men and women in various areas. Career in the forces also as a career is also an adventure in itself. To ensure that appropriate candidates are chosen, a comprehensive selection process is adopted by the armed forces through Service Selection Board i.e. … SSB interview. Selection procedure will be based on the “trait theory” of leadership which assumes that every leader must have some specific and pre-determined leadership characteristics. It is also kept as an assumption in mind that such characteristics can be acquired by a candidate with the passage of time meaning thereby that a person once rejected in an SSB interview is likely to succeed if he gets some of the traits with the passage of time.

Currently the system of selection is long and takes 4 − 5 days is thus based on an objective assessment of each candidate in which the qualities like initiative, alertness, judgement, courage, physical fitness endurance, cooperation, group planning, decisiveness, knowledge etc. Are judged. Also, psychological and mental robustness of the candidate vis-a-vis requirements of the Armed Forces is judged and at the end an overall assessment of the personality of a candidate is made by way of typical personal interviews.