The Combined Defence Services (CDS) II examination has been successfully held by the Union Public Service Commission (UPSC) today. With the completion of the examination, several coaching websites and YouTube channels have come up with their answer keys. However, before going through the answer keys, it is important to have a general overview of the examination held today. There were three papers namely English, General Knowledge and Mathematics and each of the papers had 100 marks allotted. This year, a total of 339 vacancies have been released that will be filled via the UPSC CDS 2 2021 recruitment drive.
Candidates are of the opinion that the Mathematics papers, although being easy, was time-consuming. A great deal of time was required to do the calculations. On the other hand, English and General Knowledge papers did not consume a lot of time. Reportedly, 6 to 7 current affairs from July were seen in the GK paper. For each subject, a safe score of 80 is likely to help one qualify for the examination. Nonetheless, some candidates found the Mathematics paper to be tough.
Based on the results of the written examination, qualified candidates will be called before the Services Selection Board (SSB) for the intelligence and personality test. UPSC will set a minimum qualifying marks for the written examination and will prepare a list of candidates who will obtain the same. In 2020, the written examination was held on November 08, 2020 while the results were declared on December 16, 2020. Back in 2019, the exam took place on September 08, 2019 and the results were released on November 01, 2019.
As per calculations, the results were released within 40 to 50 days from the examination. Hence, this year, it is very likely that the results for the written examination of UPSC CDS 2 will be released any time around December 24, 2021 to January 03, 2022.
Minimum Qualifying Marks for the UPSC CDS 2 Written Examination (5 Years)
| Category | 2020 | 2019 | 2018 | 2017 | 2016 |
| IMA | 139 | 134 | 116 | 120 | 105 |
| INA | 134 | 122 | 102 | 111 | 90 |
| AFA | 152 | 148 | 131 | 135 | 135 |
| OTA (Men) | 97 | 95 | 80 | 86 | 72 |
| OTA (Women) | 97 | 95 | 80 | 86 | 72 |
It is conspicuous that over the years, the minimum qualifying marks for the written examination have increased. However, in 2018, there was a drop in the qualifying marks as compared to 2017. Taking cues from these cut-offs, it can be said that for UPSC CDS 2 2021, the minimum qualifying marks for IMA, INA and AFA are likely to remain within 150 while the same for OTA (Men and Women) is expected to be within 100.
