u/Active_Amphibian8717

5/4 as it's only add on.

Mocks I used to leave latest 1 last year paper to give it in real scenario just a week before exam to make mistakes there and not in exam.

I used to go so far to ensure that real scenario is mimicked or ready for worse, like during NDA when I had first exam in September, one of the first ones to get conducted after lockdown, the advisory said face shield would be required so I used to switch of fans in July and wear mask and face shield, my head used to spin but I knew even if they don't let me remove face shield or fans don't work I wouldn't get the failure due to that issue.

And the rest I used to give mocks and pyps in combination.

Pyqs to judge my preparation for the real exam and mocks to practice harder questions. Also pro tip never buy course and mocks from the same party, the syllabus bias will boost your score but reality might be different. What I mean is if teacher X thinks a b c chapters are important he will focus on them in the course that you studied and that focus would also show up mocks and you will get a good score, but in the real exam those chapters might not come or come in less numbers. Buy these 2 things from 2 sources to cancel biases.

Here is the end of how I made the strategy, this is of course not the end of knowledge sharing you can put up further doubts in comments. Now this strategy should not be mimicked but rather learned and implemented in your own way as every person is different their favourite tough and easy parts are different and that difference is created over years of upbringing.

Also use the same strategy in every exam tweaking a bit here and there and you will never be disappointed.

All the best to everyone for their bright futures.

Gs is very vast, the more you get into it the more you feel is left,

Here pyqs play the most crucial role

what I did was I made a list of standard books ( from CAPF toppers lecture) then bought chapter wise gs questions,

Now mark the chapters that are repeating and consistent or being asked in huge numbers, you have to identify 30-40% chapters that gets you 60 70% coverage in exam and just do them you will easily score around 40+ in exam

Now here I did not follow the maths strategy of identifying easy and favourite chapters but rather the subjects as gs are huge , I treated physics as one chapter and chapters in physics as themes.

So my priority was Polity>geography>biology/economics>physics and chemistry

Polity is short and scoring 80% of questions with just 50% syllabus in Polity

Geography has very consistent themes and I found it easier to do

Biology again has very consistent themes from just 4 5 chapter

Economics Was my interest subject

Physics and chemistry I just did rough rough as I had PCM

History I always found boring and vast and less consistent, there was a time mediaeval Mughals had priority in exams but as political reality shifted we saw them disappear at all.

Note: If you haven't read the previous 2 posts you can't understand this one.

The maths strategy would not work here, it is not that chapters are loosely linked but rather complete each other together, you have to complete whole of grammar whether from book or lectures to get hold of english and then you can choose the maths strategy here but first cover basics.

So what I did was I completed grammar from aman vashisht and after that I practiced mocks (mainly banking) and found my easy, favourite and difficult topics, then did perfection classes for the selected chapters.

Here you have to understand the difference you can always leave the pqrs chapter and do the error finding one that fits your matrix but you cannot choose to do noun alone or pronoun alone.

This case did not arise in maths as we all have the basics cleared like bodmas etc since primary but in english the case is different. However if your grammar is excellent skip this part.

But even if you are scoring like 60-65 and want to increase the score, do the basics right once and instantly you wouldn't see any change but as you would start practicing the chapters again you would find english is not more just gut instincts but maths like rules that you read in basics.

Maths in UPSC CDS is different from NDA, it's different from CGL or IBPS but not entirely.

Maths in recent years has had a lot of focus on number system that too prime, why? Because upsc has a boundary that is it has to make maths questions from 10th syllabus, so to increase difficulty it has a lot of olympiad style questions which checks your problem solving rather than formula, prime numbers is fine example of that you can't use formula you have to apply thoughts. However it's not like that is the case with whole of paper, you have 120 mins and 100 questions so target just 50 questions that are not that hard with 95% accuracy and you get a very good score, that gives you 2 mins per question way higher than any cgl or ibps exam.

Now do a simple thing buy chapter wise pyq book see how many questions are there in 1 chapter and try to observe trend , example if the pyq book has past 10 years that means 20 paper and let's suppose chapter X has 168 questions and chapter Y has 280 questions, logic says X is less important as it's avg is 8 and Y has avg of 14 but if you observe closely maybe X has consistently given 7 8 questions each year but in Chapter Y earlier it used to be 20+ but now it's 7 8 maybe in future it would be less or maybe increased, basically trend has to be guessed not just blind avg.

After you have marked your avg and trend on chapters, find chapters that you know, then the easy ones , then your favourite, then the ones that are tough but scoring. The sum of avg in these chapters should get you 60-70 and then just do them like this, first do pyqs if you struggle either with time or answers go for lectures and then do the questions again.

This was my strategy in NDA too, left half of the calculus, integration part. And did statistic and probability instead, as Integration was much bigger to cover as compared to probability and statistics and these 2 chapters had equal weightage to integration.

Note read previous post too for better clarity.

I am getting a lot of queries on strategy building before the exam so here are 3 things I did to score in 140s in CDS, 190s in Afcat and 290s in Cgcat

1)Understand 1 simple rule, you have to clear an exam not syllabus 70% syllabus with 80% accuracy is 56% way above cutoffs and merits.

What people do is chaze the never ending syllabus, long lectures and what not, just take pyqs chapter wise, do a few questions if you find it easy doable than move to 2nd if you find it difficult go through lectures and then do it.

2. 80:20 rule

remember guys I only scoredin 140s , you can get even 300 the things is the exam is not difficult but rather time/age bound. If you get an ssb than you have less than 3 months for next CDS to prepare in total and 1 month from ssb to CDS.

So do not take it on ego, find that easy scoring chapter, then the ones you find interesting, then the ones that are a bit tough but very scoring, efforts should be 20% while results 80%

3. make your own strategy

As said in point 2, you can't copy my strategy simply because my good and my bad chapters or my favourite or my hard chapters are different than yours, think it through and build your own strategy using this mould.

In next Posts I will tell how I strategised particular subjects.

Hi as mentioned in previous post of mine I have cleared every CDS since CDS 1 2023, except CDS 2 2024 and CDS 2 2025 that I did not appear.

I am getting 70 in eng, 32 in GS 42 in maths in CDS 1 2026, that too when I have not touched any book since january.

Shoot your doubts regarding anything related to preparations.

Note: Making this post again as last time I could not reply to comments due to low karmas.

Secondly, the reason I want to do this, this was my last attempt for IMA, though I have 2 more for OTA but I feel this is end of my military journey whatever be the results, so before leaving I want to give back to the community that helped me in whatever way possible.

So guys, I have cleared every CDS exam that I have appeared for. My journey started with CDS 1 2023, and since then I’ve cleared all attempts except CDS 2 2024 and CDS 2 2025, which I skipped. This time, I’m scoring 140+ for IMA.

Currently, I’m working in a bank alongside preparation, so I know how difficult it can be to manage studies with a job. If anyone has questions regarding preparation strategy, managing time, subjects, previous year papers, or anything related to CDS, feel free to ask. I’ll try to help based on my experience.

Edit(10/05/2026 0013hrs)

Sorry guys for late reply, my replies were getting deleted by automod due to low karma.