Combined Defence Services (CDS) 2015 Exam Analysis

UPSC conducted Combined Defense Service Exam (CDS), for recruitment to office cadre of the Army, Navy and Air Force, on February 15, 2015. The paper was conducted in three parts. Each subject i.e. English, General Knowledge and Elementary Mathematics, was tested in a separate paper and the duration of each of these was two hours. All three papers comprised multiple choice questions.The papers on English and General Knowledge had 120 questions each while the paper onElementary Mathematics comprised 100 questions.

The detailed analysis is as below:

English
Grammar and Vocabulary dominated the section. The section also saw questions from 5 short passages. Apart from fact based questions, the passages had a few inference based questions too, which were a little tricky in nature. Some of the questions on Para-Jumble and Sentence Arrangement had close options and hence required some amount of deliberation.

The detailed break-down is as below:

Topic Number of Questions Level of Difficulty
Sentence Improvement 20 Easy
Reading Comprehension 23 (5 passages) Easy - Moderate
Synonyms 8 Moderate
Antonyms 7 Easy
One Word Substitution 5 Moderate
Para-Jumble 10 Easy-Moderate
Sentence-Jumble 7 Moderate
Spot the Error 20 Easy
Cloze Test 20 Easy

General Knowledge
Questions from Static GK dominated the section.  While the science based questions were NCERT level, questions from history revolved mainly around art and culture of 18th century. The overall level of difficulty of this section was moderate.

The detailed break-down is as below:

Topic Number of Questions Level of Difficulty
History 19 Difficult
Science 27 Easy(Concept based)
Geography 22 Moderate(Analytical)
Ecology 06 Moderate(Fact Based)
Polity 20 Easy to Moderate
Economy/ Trade 11 Moderate(Fact based)
Misc. /Armed Forces 15 Moderate(Fact)

ElementaryMathematics
This section comprised questions from a variety of areas.  A major part of the section was based on Arithmetic, Trigonometry, Mensuration and Geometry. Some questions from Trigonometry, Number system and Geometry were of good difficulty level.

The detailed break-down is as below:

Topic Number of Questions Level of Difficulty
Number System 20 Easy-Moderate
Simple interest/Compound interest 5 Easy
Percentage 2 Easy
Profit/Loss 1 Easy
Mixture 1 Easy
Time and Work 3 Easy
Time speed and Distance 6 Easy
Clock 2 Easy
Trigonometry 14 Moderate-tough
Set Theory 1 Easy
Geometry 20 Easy-Moderate
Mensuration 14 Easy
Algebra 7 Easy-Moderate
Mean-Median-Mode (Frequency Distribution Table) 4 Easy

The Expected cut off is as below:
Academy Cut off marks
IMA 97-102
INA 97-102
AFA 127-132
OTA (Men) 76-81
OTA(Women) 76-81
*A minimum score of 20 marks, in each paper, is required to clear the cut-off.

Disclaimer: All information on cut-offs, analysis, answer key and scores are based on independent analysis and evaluation made by Career Launcher. We do not take responsibility for any decision that might be taken, based on this information.

All the best!
Team CL