How to Crack CDS OTA Exam? [For Graduates & Working Candidates]

OTA (Officers Training Academy) is a premiere training academy for officers in Indian Army. When a candidate appears for CDS Written examination and clears only 2 out of 3 CDS Papers namely Paper 1 English and Paper 2 General Knowledge, candidate is considered passed for OTA Chennai and is called for SSB Interview. Candidate need not give Paper 3 Mathematics for OTA.

Aspiring candidates for IMA, AFA, and INA must give an additional Paper 3 of Mathematics.

A Graduate has a tight schedule to accommodate CDS Preparation. This is what typical day of a graduate looks like.

While a typical day of a working professional is even more loaded. This is what a typical day of graduate looks like.

In both the cases the daily life is crammed up. If you are seriously desirous to crack CDS OTA, You should be changing your lifestyle to what recommended candidates follow. You only have to follow this for 4-6 months at most until you clear your written.

Lifestyle you need to follow

Wake up early morning. Science says that early to rise is good for body and helps you to learn more and understand things better. A meditation for 10 minutes followed by Jeera water, coffee or Greek yogurt with berries with early morning healthy snack like nuts, wholewheat home made cookies to keep you awake. Now use this 1.5 hour to study.

Walking or jogging post study helps you memorise better and also improves overall blood flow of your body.

Coming back from your work or college take a break and go out to Play! This is really important. Playing sports or working out will help you refreshing your mind. There is no point of studying without a fresh mindset as you’ll not be enjoying the process.

Once you are drenched in sweat with freshened up mindset and body you are good to study. Quickly have your your dinner and a solid 2 hours of preparation at this point will be focused study.

It is good to have early dinner at 8 to digest food better. Also, dinner should be light. Your gut health plays important role in your overall activeness and energy including digestion, immune function, nutrient absorption, and even mood regulation.

Since you are so tired at this point, you will sleep in matter of hours. By 10:30 you’ll be struggling to stay awake and have a mindful 6-7 hour sleep.

A good 6 hours sleep is better than disturbed 8 hours interval sleep.Consistency in your sleep schedule can also play a significant role in how rested you feel. Going to bed and waking up at the same time every day, even on weekends, can help regulate your body’s internal clock and promote better sleep quality.

Observations of CDS candidates show that you typically need close to 500 hours of study to cover CDS Syllabus.

3-4 hours of focused CDS Preparation per day is sufficient if you are preparing for little over 4 months straight. CDS exam is generally in April and September. So Start preparation 4 months well in advance i.e May for September attempt and December for April Attempt.

If you are preparing for 8 hours a day, then little over 2 months straight will be sufficient (8 hours x 65 days = 520 hours) to cover CDS Syllabus. Now calculate your time availability per day and decide on your daily lifestyle and stick to it with discipline until you clear your written.

500 hours of OTA Preparation

Below is the minimum hours you should put in the particular topics to understand, practice and learn.

The minimum hours you should put for each subject to memorise and understand facts effectively. This doesn’t include practice hours.

So, now you can decide on your study plan and day hours you have to put in each topic. Prepare your custom planner as per your time availability.

Study Material For CDS

It is essential to follow a good study material that you can rely upon for number of hours you are putting in. Poor study material will only make your countless hours of preparation go in vain.

Example when preparing for Geography you should cover both Indian and World Geography. Entire Syllabus of geography should cover the following

In English, in addition to practicing exercises for each section, a separate workbook is essential for achieving perfection through comprehensive practice.

Study plan to Crack CDS OTA

Now, Assuming we are covering the topic “Indian River System”. If your study source doesn’t cover all this then you definitely need to think about it.

We highly recommend preparing through CDS OTA Guide. This new edition of the OTA released in 2024 covers all the areas that were left uncovered in the older 2018 edition.

Speciality of CDS OTA is that it presents the content in point to point tabular format. The new edition not only adds the missing information but additionally entails pointers for different topics stating facts and figures for better understanding and memorisation.

What adds to this is maps for Geography and History, Milestones, visual charts and timelines. These help to study and remember topics better.

How to Prepare & Revise

You now have a good study source but how do you prepare?

You need to have these two things with you

• A Rough Copy & Pen
• Sticky transparent strips

Suppose you go through page 1. There are certain facts As you go through write the facts in the rough copy as shown below. This writing will help you in memorisation. Apart from facts, other information requires understanding rather than memorization.

Now answer without seeing and see how many can you recall. If you are able to recall all then proceed to next page. If not then paste the sticky note mentioning exactly those that you were unable to recall.

By doing this, you’ll keep a record of your preparation progress, which will be beneficial for reviewing and identifying your areas of weakness when you revise later. Similarly do the other pages for river system.

Now, You can be confident of covering the topic “River System” and there is nothing else apart from this that you should be knowing with regard to CDS OTA preparation.

When talking about History, different books present content from different timelines, making it difficult to understand the events. CDS OTA not only has history topics in chronological order but also does mapping to understand events. Further timeline given separately gives you clarity on historic events.

The OTA guide comprehensively and intelligently covers the entire syllabus in similar manner, ensuring that you won’t need to refer to any additional resources.

Once you have finished everything it is recommended that you go through 5000+ MCQs book for GK MCQs revision. This book contains those questions that have been found repeating across different UPSC examination in the past 20 years. By completing these two books, you’ll have the knowledge and confidence needed to successfully clear the OTA cut off.

This new edition of CDS OTA stands out as the sole resource offering a comprehensive study reference with organised pointers, factual content, tabular layouts, maps, milestones, and visual charts. Take advantage of this valuable resource now accessible on Amazon and Flipkart.

Remember “Preparation may set the Groundwork, but it’s the quality of the arsenal that ultimately wins the war.”