Combined Defence Services
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.
Combined Defence Services (CDS-OTA)
The Combined Defense Services Examination is conducted biannually by the Union Public Service Commission to recruit candidates in the Indian Military Academy, Officers Training Academy, Indian Naval Academy and Indian Air Force Academy.
Officer Training Academy (CDS OTA) is cpnducted in offline mode (pen-paper based) test consisting of objective type questions to test a candidate’s English and General Awareness. The only major difference between CDS-OTA paper and CDS Exam for NDA, IMA and IAF is that the former does not have a Mathematics section while all the latter do. CDS OTA is a fairly an easy test majorly due to the absence of a mathematics section. In order to score good, one needs to be updated with the current affairs as well as get an average strength at English to reach the next step of the selection process. Read on to know more!
Highlights of OTA Paper
| Mode of Examination | Offline (paper-pen based) |
| Total No. of Questions asked | 240 |
| Type of Questions | Objective i.e. Multiple Choice |
| Maximum Marks | 200 |
| Duration of Examination | 240 minutes |
| Section | 2 (English and General Knowledge) |
| Negative Marking | 1/3rd per incorrect answer |
CDS OTA Paper 1 Structure
Paper 1 consists of English which is considerably easy and can help one to increase one’s score drastically.
| Section Name | English |
| No. of Questions | 120 |
| Total Marks | 100 |
| Time allotted | 120 minutes |
| Medium | English |
| Level of Section | Easy to Moderate |
CDS OTA English Syllabus
- English Section in OTA 2018 is a mixture of Vocabulary based, Grammar-based and Comprehension based questions.
- This paper is designed to test a candidate’s verbal reasoning as well as communication abilities.
- As for the Reading Comprehension part, questions are usually direct and to the point and the difficulty level is easy to moderate.
- There are 120 questions asked from this section.
- While the topics covered in this section are not that difficult but do require immense practice and good command over English language.
Syllabus for English
| Antonyms and Synonyms | Sentence Completion |
| Sentence Re-arrangement (Para-Jumbles) | Spelling Based Questions |
| Fill in the blanks (Grammar-based and Vocabulary based) | Idioms and Phrases |
| Reading Comprehension | Parts of Speech |
| Punctuation | Critical Reasoning |
| Error Spotting | Odd Word Out |
Weightage of topics in Paper 1
Paper 1- English consists of a number of topics; each has the weightage mentioned below-
| Topic | Percentage Weightage |
|---|---|
| Comprehension | 15% |
| Sentence correction | 15% |
| Error Spotting | 15% |
| Synonyms | 12% |
| Antonyms | 12% |
| Ordering of words | 10% |
| Ordering of sentence | 8% |
| Analogy | 10% |
| Fill in the blanks | 3% |
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