My SSB Recommendation Journey (Part 1): Screening & Psych Tests

I would only talk about the SSB where I was recommended (6th attempt, NDA 107, 11 SSB Allahabad). I guess that is what people want to know. But, I would touch upon the things that I did differently with respect to my previous 5 SSBs where I was not recommended.

Day 0: Filling up the PIQ Form

This time it was the cleanest. Maybe because I had become a pro at filling up PIQ forms. In fact, I was doing the same thing 2 weeks back at Allahabad itself for my TES SSB :-). Not even a single cut/strikethrough this time. Concise and clear information.

Day 1: Screening Test

OIR (Officer Intelligence Rating)

OIR/Aptitude test was never a problem for me. I guess it is not a problem for most people. But if you are worried about it, look at the online, print material available on it these days. No harm in doing that.

PPDT (Picture Perception and Description Test): Story Writing and GD

The image was vague as usual. People imagined floods, cyclones, fire, earthquakes and what not. That’s the idea of showing a vague image so that everyone perceives it differently. I could see it as fire with people around it and one dominant character.

My Approach & Attire for Screening:

I was wearing smart formals, with a tie and neatly polished formal shoes with laces. Clean hair cut and no beard. This is something that I had done in all my SSBs and it always helped. At least in terms of feeling good about myself and not getting overawed by someone else.

I heard all other candidates when they narrated their story. Identified 2 very good stories. I narrated mine with confidence and loudly so that everyone could hear it clearly. I also took appropriate pauses and didn’t rush it. My body language was top class. At least I would like to believe that. I didn’t look at the assessors even once. I knew they do it everyday and they won’t miss anything. I need not worry about their competence.

Group Discussion (GD) Experience:

I couldn’t start the GD though I tried. A couple of other guys spoke ahead of me. I was the 3rd one to speak and I asked the group to first finalize the basics, that is, no. of characters, age, sex, mood of the HERO in the story and the plot. Most of us had seen it as fire, so I asked the group to agree on it and pointed out the stories that were good (those 2 chest numbers). Most of us had HERO in 20-25 age bracket so I got the group nodding on that. Mood was positive for almost all. No brainer. I think this would have lasted for 20-25 secs max but everybody heard me. I knew I was screened in at this stage itself. I spoke once more towards the end when I asked the group to safeguard women and children first as the group was moving towards the story of extinguishing fire.

The GD ended, the guy who started the GD stood up and narrated the group story. Nobody asked him to do so. Not even the assessors :-). He just did it. Some of us thought that the GD had not ended either by that time. We perhaps had 1-2 more minutes.

Screening Result & PIQ Refill:

Anyways I was screened in. There were 160 odd candidates who reported and 68 were screened in. I was chest no. 19 in screening and became chest no. 11 after screening. 18 repeaters who were screened in were chest numbers 1 to 18 divided in 2 groups for remaining part of the SSB. We were asked to fill up PIQ forms again and I did an equally good job as I did yesterday (Day 0).

Day 2: Psychological Testing

Here I would not go in depth. I would just tell you what I did.

TAT (Thematic Apperception Test) - 12 Stories

• In this SSB, I wrote stories very specific to the images shown. I did not force fit stories. When we practice, we fall in love with some stories and we want to somehow write those during the SSB. Relevance of the image is lost in such cases. So, I went with the images this time.
• I didn’t forcefully create extremely positive scenarios. I didn’t imagine HEROes from outside the image.
• I made a girl HERO in one of the images.
• I focused more on the solution to the problem in hand rather than creating a huge problem.
• And my HEROes never got any public rewards/awards in any of the stories. They just did it out of responsibility and moved on.
• On the 12th story/blank slide, I wrote a story from my life. I failed in 12th Pre-board mathematics paper. But I scored 80 in the boards. How did I do that? That was the problem and the solution. It was easy as it happened with me.
• Cleanliness and sentence formation was better than all my previous SSBs. This is because I didn’t search for great words or didn’t make large sentences. Smaller sentences. Minimal cuts and strikethroughs.
• I looked at the image for 10-15 seconds and then started writing the story. I didn’t think about the plot after I had started writing.
• In those days, I had just about average written communication skills and my handwriting was ok types. (Now communication has improved in all these years but handwriting is as good as Captcha codes.)

WAT (Word Association Test) - 60 Sentences/Reactions

In my previous SSBs, I always missed 4-5 words. 56 sentences would have been my previous best. But this time I wrote all 60. How did I do that?

• I wrote a couple of one-word reactions. Like on the word 'Canteen', I wrote just one word… 'Relax'.
• I wrote smaller reactions with the word itself not being there in the reaction at all. For example:
  • Courage - Quality of an Army Officer.
  • Determination - Without which you cannot succeed.
• There was a word whose meaning I didn’t know at that time. It was ‘Naïve’. So I wrote: "I don’t know the meaning of this word Naïve." In my previous SSB, I would have let it go.
• To summarize, I wrote my reactions to words rather than worrying about having a proper long sentence with the word being present in it.
• I used a couple of quotes as well like ‘Honesty is the best policy’. ‘Every action has an equal and opposite reaction.’
• I think one-word reactions, quotes etc. are not recommended for more than 5-6 words all inclusive. It just helped me save time and it came naturally to me without any rigorous thinking.

Disclaimer: The above is not a mantra of success. It doesn’t mean I got recommended because of it. It is just what I did when I got recommended.

SRT (Situation Reaction Test) - 60 Reactions

There was a difference of opposite kind in this SSB. In my earlier ones, I wrote 54-58 reactions in 30 minutes provided. But I always left one or two in between. They were not continuous.

In this one, I wrote just 45 out of the 60. But they were all continuous. I didn’t leave a single one in between. I realized that when you leave a reaction, it means that you couldn’t react to that particular situation. You got confused. Or, you didn’t know what to do. If such a situation comes in your real life, you would do the same. This is not an attribute that you associate with an Army Officer.

Plus, I wrote more detailed reactions this time. They weren’t just one-sentence responses. I avoided 'either, or' kind of reactions. I avoided the word ‘IF’, I avoided words like 'may', 'should', 'could' etc. My responses were confident. "The HERO would", "The HERO surely would". My HERO was decisive. He could convince people.

Self Description - 10 Minutes

This is the easiest part of psychological testing. What I did differently this time was to write it as neatly as possible. Just like the PIQ form. I used some bullet points in between paragraphs. I don’t know if it is the right thing to do or not but that made my Self-Description more readable and effective.

I harped on qualities like discipline, obedience, sports and being responsible. And I actually had these qualities. The points to improve or the weaknesses were the ones that I mentioned in the interview as well. There was absolutely no contradiction. I wanted to improve my oral communication and I was honest about it. I was weak in time management and I was again not shy of mentioning it. I used to spend a lot of time with friends and my parents were sometimes not OK with it. So, I wrote it.

Disclaimer: I am not an SSB Guru. A lot of the above may be not appropriate, I don’t know. But it worked in my case.

This covers my experiences up to Day 2. Part 2 will delve into the GTO and Personal Interview phases.