AFCAT 1 2027 Syllabus and Exam Pattern: Official Topics, Marking and What Changed
AFCAT 01/2027 syllabus from the official notice: 100 questions, 300 marks, 2 hours, +3/-1. Topic-wise English, GA, Maths and Reasoning list, and no EKT.
By the Cadets Defence Academy team, Dehradun · Published 15 November 2026 · Last updated 15 November 2026
Top photo: newly commissioned Flying Officers at the Combined Graduation Parade, Air Force Academy, Dundigal (21 Dec 2019). Indian Air Force, GODL-India, via Wikimedia Commons.
Short answer: AFCAT 01/2027 is one online paper of 100 questions for 300 marks in 2 hours, on 31 January 2027. It covers General Awareness, Verbal Ability in English, Numerical Ability, and Reasoning and Military Aptitude. You get +3 for a correct answer and −1 for a wrong one. The official notice has no EKT (Engineering Knowledge Test) (AFCAT 01/2027 notice, para 8).
Every year, students come to us holding a syllabus PDF they found online. Half the time it is three years old. It still lists the EKT, still gives the wrong marks, and has already sent them to study the wrong chapters for a month. So this time we went to the source. Everything below comes from the AFCAT 01/2027 notification on the official portal, checked on 15 November 2026. Where something is our opinion or our maths, we say so.
Key takeaways
AFCAT 01/2027 is a single two-hour online test on Sunday, 31 January 2027. Reporting is at 8:00 AM, the gate closes at 9:00 AM, and the paper runs from 10:00 AM to 12:00 noon (notice, para 8.1).
| Item | Official detail (AFCAT 01/2027) |
|---|---|
| Exam date | 31 January 2027 (Sunday) |
| Mode | Online, objective type, English only |
| Subjects | General Awareness, Verbal Ability in English, Numerical Ability, Reasoning and Military Aptitude Test |
| Questions | 100 |
| Maximum marks | 300 |
| Duration | 2 hours (10:00 AM to 12:00 noon) |
| Correct answer | +3 |
| Wrong answer | −1 |
| Not attempted | 0 |
| EKT | Not part of the 01/2027 notice |
If the IAF holds the test in more than one shift, marks are normalised before the result using the formula given in the notice. So do not worry if a friend says their shift was “easier”.
This is the full syllabus as printed in para 8.2.1 of the notice. We have only arranged it into a table (notice, para 8.2).
| Section | Topics in the official notice | Level |
|---|---|---|
| Verbal Ability in English | Comprehension; detecting errors in sentences; sentence completion and filling in the correct word; synonyms and antonyms; cloze test (filling gaps in a paragraph); idioms and phrases; analogy; sentence rearranging; substitution in a sentence and one-word substitution; transforming sentences (complex to simple); homonyms | Graduation |
| General Awareness | History, Geography, Sports, national and international organisations, art and culture, personalities, environment and ecology, Indian polity, economy, basic science, science and technology, current affairs (national and international), defence | Graduation |
| Numerical Ability | Decimals and fractions, time and work, average and percentage, profit and loss, ratio and proportion, simple and compound interest, time, distance and races (trains, boats and streams), area and perimeter, probability, number system and number series, mixture and alligation, squares, square roots, cubes and cube roots, HCF and LCM, elementary mensuration, heights and distances, statistics (mean, median, mode), exponents and powers | Class 10 (matriculation) |
| Reasoning and Military Aptitude Test | Verbal and non-verbal reasoning | Graduation |
The notice does not say how many questions come from each section. Any “section-wise weightage” you see online is somebody’s analysis of past papers, not an official rule. Prepare all four.
Here is how we teach it in our AFCAT classes in Dehradun. This part is our advice, not the notice.
With +3 and −1, a pure blind guess is a gamble that pays nothing on average. Knowing even a little changes the maths. This table is our own arithmetic, for a question with four options.
| Situation | Chance of being right | Expected marks for that question |
|---|---|---|
| You know the answer | 100% | +3 |
| You can rule out 2 options | 50% | +1.0 |
| You can rule out 1 option | 33% | +0.33 |
| Pure blind guess | 25% | 0 |
| You leave it | — | 0 |
So the rule we give our students is: if you can confidently rule out even one option, attempt it. If you are just picking a letter, skip it and move on. With 100 questions in 120 minutes you have 72 seconds per question. Two minutes stuck on one maths question costs you more than the question is worth.
Older guides cause most of the confusion. Here is what to correct if you are studying from one.
| What old guides often say | What the AFCAT 01/2027 notice says |
|---|---|
| A separate EKT paper for Ground Duty (Technical) | No EKT anywhere in the notice |
| Exam conducted in multiple shifts as standard | One session on 31 January 2027, 10:00 AM to 12:00 noon; normalisation applies only if there is more than one shift |
| Fixed section-wise marks or question counts | No section-wise split is published |
| Published cut-off before the exam | No cut-off in the notice; the IAF can fix qualifying marks in any or all subjects |
| Maths at graduation level | Numerical Ability at matriculation (Class 10) level |
If you want official practice material, the portal has model question papers and an online practice test (Download Paper page). The model papers are old, so use them to get a feel for question style, not to plan your syllabus.
Clearing AFCAT gets you a call letter to an Air Force Selection Board (AFSB) at Dehradun, Varanasi, Gandhinagar, Mysuru or Guwahati. Stage I is the Officer Intelligence Rating test and Picture Perception and Discussion. If you clear it, Stage II covers psychological tests, group tasks and the interview. Flying branch candidates also take the Computerised Pilot Selection System (CPSS) test. After that comes the medical, and then an all-India merit list based on the written test and AFSB marks (IAF selection process).
That is why we tell students not to see the written test as the finish line. Your AFCAT score stays with you into the merit list, so every extra mark you earn in January helps you again at the end.
Still need to apply? The form is open until 11 December 2026. See our step-by-step AFCAT 1 2027 application guide and the AFCAT 1 2027 notification summary for vacancies and eligibility.
There are about eleven weeks left until 31 January 2027. That is enough time, but not enough to waste a single week on an EKT that is not in the paper, or on a syllabus copied from 2022. Print the four rows of the official syllabus table above and stick them on your wall. Every evening, ask yourself which row you moved forward today.
The sky is very generous to people who prepare honestly. Start today.
Share your details and our team at Cadets Defence Academy, Dehradun will call you about our AFCAT batches, mock tests and AFSB guidance. You can also read about our AFCAT coaching in Dehradun.
The official notice lists four areas: Verbal Ability in English, General Awareness, Numerical Ability, and Reasoning and Military Aptitude (verbal and non-verbal reasoning). Numerical Ability is at matriculation level and the other sections at graduation level.
There are 100 objective questions for 300 marks, and the test lasts 2 hours. It is held online in English on 31 January 2027, from 10:00 AM to 12:00 noon.
Yes. A correct answer gets +3 marks, a wrong answer loses 1 mark, and an unattempted question gets 0.
No. The AFCAT 01/2027 notification does not include an Engineering Knowledge Test. Older syllabus PDFs that still show an EKT are out of date.
The notice says Numerical Ability questions are at matriculation (Class 10) level. Speed and accuracy matter more than advanced topics.
No. The notice does not publish a section-wise split or cut-off. It says the IAF can fix qualifying marks in any or all subjects.
Candidates who qualify are called to an Air Force Selection Board for Stage I and Stage II tests. Flying branch candidates also take CPSS. This is followed by a medical examination and an all-India merit list based on the written and AFSB performance.
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