What is Afcat exam eligibility & how to crack afcat exam

What is Afcat exam eligibility  & how to crack afcat exam ?

AFCAT is an exam which can give you wings! For all of you who have the dream of working between the sprawling jets can turn this dream into reality through this exam. Air Force Common Admission Test is a written exam conducted by Indian Air Force twice every year to induct officers in the IAF. The written exam is followed by Air Force Selection Board Interview for shortlisted candidates.

AFCAT is a national level competitive exam conducted by the Indian Air Force (IAF) to select officers for all its branches, except for the medical and dental branches

• For all entries other than NDA and CDSE and for all branches, candidates have to undergo the AFCAT.
• The test is conducted twice a year in February and August
• Advertisements inviting applications for AFCAT are out in June and December. Candidates are to apply as per the advertisement.
• The test is conducted all across India by the Indian Air Force.

What are the options through AFCAT?

Through AFCAT you can apply for all the three branches of the IAF which are Flying Branch, Technical Branch and Ground Duty Branches. The eligibility criteria for different branches vary. Both men and women can apply for all the three branches. While for women there is short service commission only in all the three branches, for men there is Permanent as well as Short Service Commission for men. However for Flying Branch only Short Service Commission is there through AFCAT. Thus if you clear the written exam and then clear the AFSB also then you have a chance of joining the Air Force Academy.

AFCAT exam details
The written exam is an exam of 2 hour duration. It consists of 100 questions and each question carries 3 marks. Thus for every correct answer a candidate gets 3 marks, for every wrong answer one mark is deducted and there is no marking for any question left blank. The paper consists a mix of variety of fields. There are questions from Current Affairs, Math, Reasoning, English, History, Geography, Science, Polity, Economics etc. After the written exam the results are declared and a cut off is fixed. Candidates scoring above the cutoff are called for AFSB interview. This interview is a personality test conducted for duration of 6 days. This personality test is conducted in two stages and consists of tests like Intelligence test, Psychological Tests, Group Tasks and personal interview. Further details on AFSB are beyond the scope here and you can always follow of our SSBCrack for further details on AFSB and SSB.

Eligibility Criteria

• Flying Branch –Age should lay between to 23 years at the time of course commencement. The candidate must be a Graduate (Minimum three year degree course) in any discipline from a recognized University who have attained minimum 60% marks in aggregate in all papers put together and have passed Maths and Physics at 10+2 level OR BE / B Tech degree (Four year course) from a recognize
• 
  University with minimum 60% marks in aggregate in all papers put together.
• Technical Branch- The age must lay between 18 to 28 years at the time of course commencement. For details on education candidates can refer to the advertisement.
• Ground Duty Branch-The age must lie between 20-23 years for Graduates, 20-25
  years for Post Graduates, 20-26 years for LLB (Three year course after graduation) and 20-27 years for M.Ed/PhD/CA/ICWA. For details on education qualification.

SCHEME OF SYLLABUS

1. The AFCAT Question Paper will have 100 questions. All questions will be of three marks each. For every correct answer the candidate will get three marks and for every wrong answer one mark will be deducted under negative marking. The total time allotted for the paper is two hours.
2. Each Question Paper will have questions from the following topics:-
1. General Awareness – History, Sports, Geography, Environment, Civics, Basic Science, Defence, Art, Culture, Current Affairs, Politics etc.
2. Verbal Ability in English – Comprehension, Error Detection, Sentence Completion, Synonyms, Antonyms and Testing of Vocabulary.
3. Numerical Ability – Decimal Fraction, Simplification, Average, Profit & loss, Percentage, Ratio & Proportion and Simple interest.
4. Reasoning and Military Aptitude Test – Verbal Skills and Spatial Ability.

 Coming to preparation part, as compared to other Defence exams namely CDSE, AFCAT is comparatively on easier side, but having said that, one should not take it that easy also, as day by day competition in AFCAT is increasing exponentially.

First step, towards the preparation for AFCAT, i believe, should be, understanding the syllabus and pattern, syllabus for first timers, is not any different from any other competitive exams, only

 Military Aptitude Test  : holds exception, but with little practise, it will be a piece of cake, and a sweet one.

Next, after going through the syllabus and pattern, one can start solving previous year papers, the more you solve,the more you get familiar with two things, one, the time constraint, and two, your question solving ability for various type of questions.

After solving say, 4–5 previous years question paper, you will be in the position, to judge, to start with which section first and score more, the objective is to score more and not to simply attempt questions, negative marking had been drowning anchor for many candidates in past, and this anchor weighs & hurts more, when you miss it by one or two marks. So, plan ahead, always aim to score as high as possible, normally candidates, go through the past trends of cut-offs, and once confident with same, they stop answering other questions, this is not a good practise, as recent past has shown that cut-offs can very well go of course shooting very high.

Having said all this, For General Knowledge, you keep track with current affairs, inShorts and Current Affairs app can help a lot, For rest all other sections, previous year question papers can really helpful, or else if you want make it a sure shot, you can go ahead and buy some good AFCAT books, Arihant Publications has proved good for me, you can give it a try.

In AFCAT exam speed matters, you have to complete 100 questions in 2 hours. There are few sections where you need just 5 secs to answer a questions, you are right, general knowledge sections is something you can do with speed, another sections is English, these sections do not take much time to solve because you either know the answer or you don’t. Mathematics and Military aptitude will definitely take more time. So plan accordingly.

Following is just an example of approach which you can take, or else, go ahead with your strategy, if you are confident.

1. Maths—>Military Aptitude—> English—>GK [If you Maths is strong]
2. GK—>English—>Military Aptitude—>Maths [If you are weak in Maths]

physical requirements on the AFCAT exam for Man

Technical and Ground Duty Branch

Min Height (Men) – 157.5 cms

Weight: correlated weight with height is needed.

All other medical criteria would be evaluated by the Air Force Medical Authorities whose decision on the fitness would be final.

Height relaxation: For Gorkhas and individual belonging to hills of North-Eastern region of India, Garhwali and Kumaon, the minimum acceptable height will be 5 cms less.

In case of candidates from Lakshadweep, the minimum acceptable height will be by 2 cms less.

Flying Branch

For men and Women Same Criteria for flying branch.

Minimum height : 162.5 cms with correlated weight

Weight: correlated weight with height is needed.

Leg Length : Min – 99 cms. Max – 120 cms.

Thigh Length : Max – 64 cms.

Sitting Height : Min – 81.5 cms. Max – 96 cms.

Vision:

Minimum Visual Acuity 6/6 in one eye and 6/9 in other, correctable to 6/6 only for hypermetropia.

Manifest Myopia – Nil. (c) LASIK Surgery for correction of vision is admissible in Transport and Helicopter streams of Short Service Commission (Flying Branch) if the following conditions are fulfilled at the time of Air Force medical examination:-

LASIK Surgery should not have been carried out before the age of 20 years.

The axial length of the eye should not be more than 25.5 mm as measured by OLmaster.

At least twelve months should have lapsed post uncomplicate stable LASIK. No history or evidence of any complication.

The post LASIK corneal thickness as measured by a corneal pachymeter should not be less than 450 microns.

Individuals with high refractive errors (>6D) prior to LASIK are to be excluded. Candidates must not suffer from colour or night blindness.

All other medical criteria would be evaluated by the Air Force Medical Authorities whose decision on the fitness would be final.

physical requirements on the AFCAT exam for women

For flying branch (for women)

Height - min 162.5 cm

weight - according to height

vision - 6/6 in one eye and 6/9 in other.

For technical and ground duty (for women)

Height- min 152 cm

weight accordingly.

The detailed requirements can be seen in the official notice released by IAF on there website.

These requirements will only be checked when you qualify the written exam i.e. AFCAT , get recommended by AFSB (AirForce Selection Board) and are ready for your medicals but it’s better to be aware beforehand and choose the branch wisely according to your eligibility.

If you meet the physical requirements then for AFCAT you just need to have a basic knowledge of quants, english , reasoning and GK.