CDS-2 2025 Paper Analysis and Expected Cut-Off Marks

The CDS-2 2025 exam is over, and now every aspirant is curious about how it went and the expected cut-off marks. Conducted by UPSC on 14th September 2025, the exam had three papers – English, General Knowledge, and Elementary Mathematics. At Centurion Defence Academy, one of India’s most trusted defence coaching institutes, we’ve analysed the exam in an easy-to-understand way.

CDS-2 2025 Analysis Of All Three Papers:

Here you will get details on the difficulty level of questions in all three papers of the CDS-2 2025 exam. You can even check how many questions were asked from particular topics, as we have given the overall analysis of the CDS-2 2025 exam in the sections below of this article.

Paper	Total Questions	Difficult Questions	Secured Attempt
ENGLISH	120	Moderate	70-80 Questions
GK	120	Moderate	70-80 Questions
ELEMENTARY MATHS	100	Moderate	45-52 Questions

CDS-2 2025 English Paper Analysis:

According to the CDS syllabus for English paper, a total of 120 questions were distributed in the exam. See the table below to have an idea of the level of difficulty of the English paper in the CDS exam.

Topics in the English Section	Number of Questions	Difficulty Level	Easy Questions	Moderate Questions	Brain Busters (Difficult)
Fill in the Blanks
Spotting Errors
Usage of Paired Words
Antonyms
Synonyms
Idioms & Phrase
Sentence Rearrangement
Word Matching
Cloze Test

CDS-2 2025 GK Paper Analysis:

According to the syllabus, there were a total of 120 questions in the CDS-2 2025 General Knowledge paper. Here you can have an idea about the difficulty level of the CDS GK paper and assess your performance.

Subjects	Sub-Section	Number of Questions	Difficulty Level	Easy Questions	Moderate Questions
History
Geography
Indian Geography
Polity & Governance		10
Economics		12
Physics
Chemistry		11
Biology		09
Current Affairs		15
Static GK

CDS-2 2025 Elementary Mathematics Analysis:

As we have already mentioned, the elementary mathematics paper is mandatory for those candidates who want to join the Indian Military Academy (IMA), Air Force Academy (AFA), or Indian Naval Academy (INA).

Here you can get a detailed analysis of the CDS-2 2025 mathematics paper.

Topics	No of Questions	Difficulty Level	Easy Questions	Moderate Questions	Brain Busters (Difficult)
Arithmetic	08
Algebra	27
Geometry	15
Trigonometry	14
Mensuration	12
Statistics	10
Number System	12

CDS-2 2025 Written Exam Expected Cut-Off Marks:

CDS aspirants are requested to note that the UPSC will release the CDS-2 2025 written exam cut-off score after the announcement of the final result.

However, based on the analysis of all three papers and the level of difficulty in questions, the approximate cut-off marks for CDS-2 2025 written exam are as mentioned below:

ACADEMIES	CUT-OFF SCORE
IMA [INDIAN MILITARY ACADEMY]
INA [INDIAN NAVAL ACADEMY]
AFA [AIR FORCE ACADEMY]
OTA MEN
OTA WOMEN

CDS Written Exam Previous Years Cut-off Marks:

With the help of the previous years’ cut-off marks for CDS written exams, you can get an idea of the expected cut-off mark for the CDS-2 2025 exam. It will also help you realise the current trends of the CDS exam.

EXAM CYCLE	IMA	INA	AFA	OTA MEN	OTA WOMEN
CDS 1 2024	120	100	128	87	87
CDS 2 2023	127	110	136	104	104
CDS 1 2023	132	122	142	101	101
CDS 2 2022	126	118	136	98	98
CDS 1 2022	136	128	147	100	100
CDS 2 2021	138	132	148	102	102
CDS 1 2021	145	136	158	107	107
CDS 2 2020	139	134	152	97	97
CDS 1 2020	130	118	143	93	93
CDS 2 2019	134	122	148	95	95
CDS 1 2019	116	105	129	78	78
CDS 2 2018	116	102	131	80	80
CDS 1 2018	118	98	138	69	69

Centurion Defence Academy is India’s top defence exam coaching, the go-to choice for thousands of aspirants for its expert coaching and timely updates. No matter if you are preparing for NDA, CDS, AFCAT, MNS, or other premier defence exams, Centurion offers you everything you require on one roof.

For the CDS-2 2025 exam, we provide you with correct answer keys for each of the three papers, English, General Knowledge, and Elementary Mathematics, set-wise on our website. Keep yourself updated with Centurion Defence Academy for dates of results, cut-off marks, SSB interview preparation, and all other details.