The Indian Air Force conducts AFCAT for recruitment of Short Service Commission (SSC) in Flying Branch and Permanent Commission (PC) / Short Service Commission (SSC) in Ground Duty (Technical and Non-technical) Branches. The courses will commence from January 2019 onwards. However, an unexpected change was noticed for AFCAT 2018.

For the first time, Indian Air Force will conduct an online test for AFCAT 2018. The online exam system has been developed in collaboration with the Centre for Development of Advanced Computing (C-DAC). As per the reports, the IAF is the first of the three defence services to take up IT-enabled online testing for induction in the Officers and Airmen cadres.

The following change has been implemented for the benefit of the candidate and also to organise the efficiency of the organisation. Since every coin has two sides, alongwith benefits of going online, there is a certain drawback of implementing this change. As of now, the IAF has over 100 centres across India for Officer cadre exam and 14 for Airmen selection exams. Certain states and Union Territories do not even have any testing centre. This shall affect the students as they would have to spend a considerable amount of time and resources on travelling to the allotted centres.

The exam for AFCAT 2018 will be held at the following test centers, Ambala, Amritsar, Allahabad, Agra, Ahmedabad, Barnala, Bathinda, Bengaluru, Belgaum, Bidar, Bagdogra, Bareilly, Chandigarh, Chabua, Chennai, Dehradun, Delhi, Darbhanga, Gorakhpur, Gwalior, Guwahati, Halwara, Hashimara, Hyderabad, Imphal, Jalandhar, Jammu, Jorhat, Jaipur, Jamnagar, Jodhpur, Kanpur, Kolkata, Kalaikunda(Kharagpur), Kochi, Leh, Lucknow, Mumbai, Mohanbari, Mysore, Nal (Bikaner), Nagpur, Ojhar (Nasik), Pathankot, Patna, Pune, Port Blair, Salua (Kharagpur), Srinagar, Suratgarh, Sirsa,Saharanpur, Shillong, Silchar, Sulur (Coimbatore), Thane, Tezpur, Thanjavur, Thiruvananthapuram, Vadodara, Varanasi.

The change in the mode of the entrance exam will be implemented from January 2018. The exam shall be held in February 2018. The AFCAT 2018 registration which will begin from December 16, 2017, will continue until January 14, 2018. For registration, applicants have to pay an amount of Rs. 250/- as examination fee. However, candidates registering for Meteorology entry and NCC Special entry are not required to pay any amount.

The exam pattern for AFCAT 2018 shall be same, except that it will now be held online. There will be 100 MCQ questions of 03 marks each. The candidate need to complete the exam in a duration of 02 hours. For every correct answer, three marks will be given and there shall be a negative marking of 01 marks for every incorrect answer. The candidate need to prepare from topics such as General Awareness (History, Sports, Geography, Environment, Civics, Basic Science, Defence, Art, Culture, Current Affairs, Politics etc), Verbal Ability in English (Comprehension, Error Detection, Sentence Completion, Synonyms, Antonyms and Testing of Vocabulary). Numerical Ability (Decimal Fraction, Simplification, Average, Profit & loss, Percentage, Ratio & Proportion and Simple interest), Reasoning and Military Aptitude Test (Verbal Skills and Spatial Ability).

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