I have been defense(Navy in specific) aspirant for a considerable period infact still I am its just that my age crossed the intake age of Indian Navy. Today I am a Data Analyst at a named MNC but the zeal to join armed forces is still intact. I still get goosebumps when I watch POP parades or RD parades. I feel blood rush when I listen to a soldier speaking with pride or I read a battle ops story. It reminds me of my NCC days and also awakes my imagination of being a part of Indian Navy donning white Crisp uniform with Nelson rings on my shoulders.
On the positive side I feel fortunate that I was able to crack exams and I was able to experience THE SSB interview and learn some bits from its preparation process and experience. At least I am not guilty of not trying.
This blog is part of such reflections. In this blog I have listed top 5 learnings from my SSB preparation/journey which currently helping me in my professional life or life in general.
1)Story telling:
Most of us as a part of SSB preparation we spend time in writing PPDT,TAT, SRT and WAT responses. For me this has been wired into my head that whatever I explain or whichever situation I explain in my personal or professional life I tend to follow a structured format of
setting premise(what lead to the situation),
explaining item of focus (what is currently happening)
conclusion or action plan (what is the way forward)
essentially we follow the same or similar format in TAT or PPDT.
I would like to frame in a way that 'practicing TAT, PPDT and to some extent lecturette has helped me to inculcate art of story telling'.
2)Structured thinking while faced with practical problem:
Most of the people get tensed and startled when they are thrown with real life practical problem. they get tensed especially when it is time bound.
SSB is essentially a test of personality involving problem solving - a lot of problem solving. It is a unique interview where a candidates responses are collected or observed while he was put in a problematic situations. The situation could be psychometric involving TAT, SRT and WAT or it could be ground tasks involving PGT, HGT and command tasks core agenda remains the same to find how sorted you are mentally.
while solving or practicing such time bound problems I observed that essentially muscle of structured thinkingis getting trained. In way SSB preparation helped me to have a mindset of structured thinking. Today I find myself to be more calm and composed when I am faced with timebound practical problems.
NEXT 3 HABITS ARE SUCH WHICH ARE ESSENTIAL IN ANY CONSIDERABLE PURSUATIONS NOT ONLY SSB PREP THAT NEEDS. ITS JUST THAT I INCULCATED THEM WHILE PREPARING FOR ARMED FORCES.
3)Consistency and habits:
Not only SSB, Preparation for anything for that matter needs consistency. Nothing significant can be achieved in a matter of few days - Its days of handwork and consistency in it which helps us achieve success of significance.
how someone can improve his/her fitness by matter of days? how will someone improve his/her GK by reading a book for 4-5 days. but going for a run every day will help getting into better shape. reading news paper and books everyday will improve one's GK.
Ultimately Its what you do every day that makes you what you are
This is how- I learnt the importance of consistency and power of having good habits by my SSB/defense preparation.
4)Discipline:
Inline with earlier point about consistency and habit- discipline is one such integral component of preparation cycle. discipline in simple word is doing things in right way at right time.
THE ABOVE 2 POINTS HAVE HELPED ME TO BE ORGANISED.
5)Planning and staying ahead:
This is not SSB preparation but working towards anything larger than yourself makes you well organized and well planned person.
For me SSB preparation has taught planning and thinking steps ahead of current situation.
and when you are planned you are calm, you are punctual and you are so many other things.
Bottom line:
Today when I reflect over my preparation to join Armed forces I feel not a single bit has gone waste. All the effort and hardwork have paid back in making me efficient in some or the other way. In other words all the preparation put towards has made me a better person otherwise it would have taken some time.
We know that SSB interview is purely a personality test and personality is more of behavior & thoughts of a person rather than a physical trait. In Psychology tests at SSB- we collect responses from a candidate to series of stimuli and extrapolate the responses to identify the personality traits of that person. The entire Psychometric test series at SSB stands on a technique called projective technique. In which responses are collected from candidate to a ambiguous stimuli(TAT pictures, WAT words, SRT situation completions). As It is a time bound activity(candidate has to write the response in short period of time) the true personality tends to come out.
watch below video to understand projective technique in psychology:
with these assessors will get wholistic picture of a candidate and it becomes easy to find does the candidate have it in him/her? Is the candidate dependable/trustworthy? Is the candidate capable of leading men into war, if required? Is he trainable/moldable to be an officer?
Day-2 at SSB is generally psychology day. In this blog lets peek in and understand, what are the parts of the Psyc tests conducted at SSB? and see samples of each type. At the end We have also answered some FAQs.
there are four types of psychometric tests(responses) taken
Thematic Apperception Test (TAT)
Word Association Test (WAT)
Situation Reaction Test (SRT)
Self-Description Test (SD)
Lets see one after other in detail-
1)TAT (Thematic Apperception Test):
In this test, set of 12 pictures will be shown to you one after other, in a particular sequence you will have to write a story for each picture within given time. The picture will be flashed for 30 seconds and after that 4 minutes will be given to write the story and then next picture is shown for 30 seconds, test will continue so on and so forth.
Last slide(12th slide) will be invariably blank. You are free to write any story for that slide but base rule for first 11 slides is that the story should revolve around the theme shown in the picture.
There is no precise word limits for the story but instructions will be to keep the story crisp, words ranging from 70 to 100.
While writing the story let your thoughts and emotions free.
Typical instructions given before TAT is-
"write crisp story around the picture of 70 to 100 words; let free your thoughts; keep in mind to express the feeling, emotions and thoughts as free as possible without paying attention to the beauty of the expression; The story should contain- what lead to to the situation, what is currently happening what is most likely outcome";
Sample picture and story:
Story: Mylene a young agriculture scientist was on a survey in village Rampur. While surveying she finds out the village farmers were using age old obsolete techniques to farm. After survey Mylene gets approval and help from higher officials to organize a training sessions to train and introduce farmers to new, efficient methods of farming. In next season of crops she showed demo/test of techniques. The farmers slowly implemented new methods and got significant increase in yield.
2)WAT(Word Association Test):
Similar to TAT; 60 words will be flashed on the screen one after other. each word will be there on the screen for 15 seconds. in that time you will have to write a sentence associating that word.
The sentence can have any form of the word; Assessor is interested in seeing "how the candidate associate with the shown word"
For example in below sample word help candidate has associated with helping juniors that to in career.
Sample WAT words and responses:
Help — Help juniors to advance in their career.
Organize — Bottomline employees are real bone of organization.
Action — Plan before action.
Determination — Determination and planned roadmap will lead to success.
Imagination — Imaginations can take to places which we cant imagine.
As the time period to write response for each word is only 15 seconds, try to be crisp with the sentences and don't pay much attention to beauty of the expression (as instructed).
Keep in mind to attend minimum of 45 words out of 60. That is the criteria.
Practicing couple of WAT sets prior to SSB would help. on YouTube you will get many such sets with timings.
In this test, a booklet with 60 ambiguous situations will be given and 30 minutes to write responses/reactions- that gives 30 secs to read, understand and write response to one situation.
Again like WAT try to be crisp and write at least 45 SRT responses.
Sample situations and response to them:
1. He is having high fever and he was told to walk a long distance by his NCC commander. Solution: tell NCC commander the situation and take sick off, medical aid and rest.
2.He was selected as the leader of the mountain expedition, for which, he has to leave the next day. He got a call about his grandmother being ill. Solution: speak to grandmother over phone and let parents take care of the situation and lead the expedition.
3.He was served with a challenge by the college bully when he reported against him to the principal when the latter tried to beat his friend. Solution: get his friend out of situation and report to principal about indiscipline.
4.His friends want to organize a party for one of his favorite lecturers who was retiring, but he is short on money. Solution:gets money from friend and repays him later.
5.He was on a cycle expedition with his friends when his cycle gave up in the middle of the desert. Solution: with the help of friends cross the remaining part of desert and get the cycle fixed and continue.
Many of the situations will be day to day facing problems. so for a average candidate it should not be a problem to relate to the situation and write his/her action; one advice could be write crisp and practical responses. I see many candidates write heroic responses ending up exaggerating the situation.
even though there is no good response and bad response to a situation, some times candidates tend to write impractical solutions. Please avoid such. example of impractical (bad) responses.
1. He is having high fever and he was told to walk a long distance by his NCC commander. Solution: He takes over the challenge and motivates/leads his troop covers the distance in record time.
2.He was selected as the leader of the mountain expedition, for which, he has to leave the next day. He got a call about his grandmother being ill. Solution: Leads the mountain expedition, covers it soon in record time; takes flight to home takes grandmother to hospital; make sure she is doing fine; comes back and joins the unit.
All over the place we have seen the advise to attempt at least 45 SRTs and WATs. here is reason to that
Why should we attend minimum of 45 SRTs/WATs?
45 out of 60 stimulus is average count at any competent person can attempt. If at all any candidate is attempting less than 45 SRT or WAT it is evident that the candidate is slow in comprehending the situation and slow in decision making (or manipulating his/her responses).
4)SD(Self Description):
In this part of test, candidate will have to write 5 paragraphs about himself/herself in 15 minutes. Those 5 sections should answer to below 5 questions individually.
What do your parents think of you?
What do your teacher/employer think of you?
What does your friend/colleagues think of your self?
What do you think of yourself?
What are your future goals? or what are the improvements needed in you?
Here we have given a sample SD of a working candidate which you can refer and learn from.
Sample SD:
i.Opinion of parents: My parents think I am self reliant, loyal and responsible child. My parents think I am helpful and understand them. They appreciate & support my achievements and progress, all from school, college and in company. They suggest me to become more disciplined.
ii.Opinion of teachers/employer: My boss thinks I am a guy with good attitude. He thinks I am a good learner and open for new opportunities so he trusts me with new deployments. He also appreciates my active participation in CSR activities and my helping nature. He recognizes my growth-mentality.
iii.Opinion of friends/colleague: My friends think I am optimistic in nature, who can motivate them; so trust my suggestions at hard times. They feel I am empathetic so they like sharing info. with me. My colleagues appreciate my hardworking and helping nature.
iv.Own opinion: I am optimistic with fair communication capabilities. I think I am self motivated and hardworking person. I believe ANY skill can be learnt with adequate practice and patience; that belief has made me a good learner. I consider calmness and precision in thinking are my key strengths.
v.Improvements needed: I want to be a good leader possibly in Indian Navy; for that I want level up my physical fitness, professionalism, communication skills and knowledge.
We have also found a clear explanation about SD on Quora by Col M. M. Nehru, which we highly recommend you to read.
Do not go prepared with readymade stories and responses: I see lot of candidates go to SSB with ready made stories, memorized WAT sentences and SRT responses. Do not waste your time in any of such misconceptions. It only hinders your performance. Write using your commonsense.
Do not memorize WATs and SRTs: Again this point is in context with above one, I have seen many candidates memorizing WAT sentences and SRT reactions. Do not fall for such. remember SSB is personality test not academic or English test. Instead of over practicing and memorizing SRT and WATs; work on your practical sense and general knowledge - that makes you a competent person.
Don't be a super hero- be practical: Many candidates tend to think it is essential to tackle all the problems given, in a perfect manner like a Bollywood hero. Those candidates are doing nothing but digging their own grave in selection perspective. such superman stuffs, over enthusiastic stories/responses lead to sure rejection. As mentioned earlier, these psych tests nothing but common sense and practical intelligence. So- Try to put yourself in the situation and think what is practically possible to solve the conflict.
jitna sochoge utna nochoge: I have seen candidates; thinking too much and going into viscous cycle of introspection. Once they go into this phase of thinking they tend to see and only see- all the wrong in their personality and actions. So it better if you think less about your personality flaws rather than start working to improve it.
No correct or No wrong answers: Think SSB as just a test but remember it is a personality test and hence there is NO correct or NO wrong responses. Its just a personality that changes and the board is interested to select the candidates whos personality is well suited for armed forces.
Some FAQs on SSB Psychology tests:
1)What if I miss A WAT word/SRT response in between?
Answer: that is totally fine! if you leave one or two in between; It is totally fine if you are unable to complete all 60 of them. But do not leave too many in between and attempt at least 45 WAT and 45 SRT. As it clearly shows slowness in the decision making.
2)Is it okay if I leave a TAT?
Answer: It is Advised to attend all the TAT; Do not leave anyone in between.
3)Can we prepare story for blank slide before hand ?
Answer: Yes, you can go prepared for blank story; Infact it is convenient to go prepared for blank story(atleast have the theme of the story ready in your mind).
4)Can we prepare SD before hand?
Answer: Yes, It is most convenient move to go with prepared SD. As there will be only 15 minutes(sometimes 10 minutes).
5)How to prepare for Psychology tests?
Answer: No much preparation is required for Psychology tests. I have seen many candidates preparing psychology tests every day; I have also seen people memorizing TAT; WAT and SRTs which is dumbest thing to do. Advice is just write a set of WAT; SRT; TAT a week before SSB interview so that you will know where do you stand and just to get yourself familiar with the process. Remember there are only two things you should go prepared with 1)SD 2)blank slide story.
6)Will interviewing officer uses SD?
Answer: No, interviewing officer will not have access to any of the psychological test materials/responses of the candidate.
7) Is Psych test more important than other tests?
Answer: No, GTO and personal interview are equally important.
8)Should the TAT stories revolve around self? should main character in the TAT/PPDT story be of same age as candidate?
Answer: There is no such rule. it is just a widly spread myth that trait and age of main character of the story should match to candidates age, trait and character.
Advice is just write the stories with free mind without any preconceived mental blocks (your personality traits will automatically come out)
9) Is grammar and beauty of sentence important in psychology tests?
Answer: It is not very important; the sentence should be conveyable.
10)Is it okay if I attempt less than 45 SRT/WAT?
Answer: No, minimum criteria is to attempt at least 45.
People say quality response is more important than going more than 45- it is bullshit.
11)How people get recommended by attempting less than 45 SRT or WAT?
Answer: If it is less than 45; it is NO from Psychology officer. however decision to recommend(select) a candidate is taken at conference(day-5). At the conference opinions from all the three assessors is considered and result is declared.
