How To Ace The Psychology Test In SSB Interview

The SSB interview rounds of the exam, which are usually held over a period of 5 days, contain psychology tests. These tests are generally conducted on the second day of your 5-day stay at the center where you are being assessed. There will be assessing officers observing you at all times to ensure that they select the best candidates for the job. A lot of defence services work is about mental toughness. So, candidates need to be mentally prepared for this kind of a career. The psychology tests are designed to understand the true personality of the candidate.

The psychology tests are divided into four categories: thematic appreciation test (TAT), word association test (WAT), situation reaction test (SRT) and self description (SD). The idea is to unveil the true nature and aptitude of the candidates by delving deep into their minds. Their behavioral and thought processes are studied, with other qualities like problem-solving ability and team spirit. Only those candidates are taken forward who show all of these qualities that a personnel of the defence services needs to have.

In this post, we will talk about the first psychology test: thematic appreciation test (TAT). In this test, the candidate will be shown 12 stories at 30 seconds per story. Then the candidate will be asked to draft a story in 4 minutes time. The 12th story is actually a blank page! You will have to construct any story idea that comes to your mind at that stage and write it down. The stories you write during this round will help assessing officers understand how your mind works while relating the pictures and the stories you write.

By talking to the SSB mentors at Siegwald Academy, the best SSB training institute in Kolkata, we have come up with some tips on how to ace this round. For example, in the 30 seconds you get to study the picture, look at the background, the foreground and the characters in the picture thoroughly. Study the setting, the clothes of the characters. Place yourself in the picture as one of the characters and then string a story. Write about 2 lines on what you think could have been the background to the event in the story, 4 lines on what’s going on in the picture and 2 lines as the reasonable outcome. You won’t get more time anyway.

For more tips on the ways to crack TAT in SSB, get in touch with our mentors through SiegwaldAcademy.com