Psychology Tests are carried out on the second day of SSB. It normally starts at 0800 hrs and finishes by 1200 hrs. There are four tests that are administered namely Thematic Apperception Test (TAT), Word Association Test (WAT), Situation Reaction Test (SRT), and Self Description (SD).
TAT: What is Apperception, okay before that let me explain what is perception! Perception is the way we perceive things like you perceive a car to be a car and a tree to be a tree. Suppose I put a small snake in front of a six-month-old child what will the child do! He will start playing with the snake because he has no backup data in his brain to tell him what is this thin object, he sees it moving and he wants to catch it. If I put the same snake in front of you! You may move away or move the snake away or may kill it. Why do you do that because you have seen a snake or have heard about it. This perception which is based on past experiences is called Apperception. We show the same picture to all the candidates but they write different stories because of their different past experiences.
In TAT you are shown 12 pictures. Actually, 11 pictures and the twelfth is a blank screen. Each picture stays there for 30 seconds and in addition, you get four minutes to write the story. Unlike PPDT you don’t have to write the gender, age, and mood of the characters. You straight away write the story. Your story should have four elements in it.
- Name of the hero; use different names appropriate for the characters, don’t say Hari went to take blessings of his father in the graveyard that too is a Christian graveyard because Hari’s father would have been cremated and not buried. Don’t repeat the same name in all the stories we are a country with more than 130 crore population;)
- Aim of the hero; name and aim can normally come in the first line itself. For example, Ramesh belonged to a poor background and wanted to be an engineer.
- Bit of a challenge; without a challenge, there is no hero and
- How he overcomes the challenge to come out as a hero.
Writing the title of the story is not mandatory. Broadly speaking if I make a movie on your story and play it in PVR next to your house will you go and see it or not If you are doubtful or won’t go then it’s a flop.
For the 12th story on a blank screen, you can imagine a scene and write a story. You don’t have to describe the story which means you can make this story right away and write this here unless you have used this story elsewhere
There are various themes prevalent in India like swachh Bharat, droughts, floods, female foeticide, adult education, intercaste marriage, etc. If the picture suits try and make it on a theme else don’t unnecessarily situate the story. Even girls/ladies can also be heroes of the story.
WAT (Word Association Test): As the name suggests it is word association. You are shown 60 words. Each word stays on the screen for 15 seconds. Within this time you are supposed to read the word and use it in your sentence or give the feeling or emotion that comes into your mind. Say the word Mother so you can say Mother is my best friend (use the word ) or you may make the Truest form of love (do not use the word but gave the emotion) Remember it is not a test of your English proficiency. You are supposed to follow certain rules while making sentences. These are:
- Do not start your sentence with I, me, myself, you, we, Ramesh, etc. Your sentences need to be neutral sentences.
- Do not use Always and Never in sentences.
- Do not use idioms and phrases, I say Honesty and you make Honesty the best policy
- Do not use statements of facts eg I say Rose and you make Rose red. Big deal. Or I say Democracy and you say India is a democratic country. Yes, it is, if you say Democracy is the best form of government. This is acceptable because this is your opinion. You could have said Dictatorship is the best form of government.
Attempt all the words as you are getting equal time for each word. If you skip a word that means either you do not know the meaning of the word or some crap came to your mind and you did not want to write it.
You don’t have to write the words and waste your time simply use them in your sentence.
SRT ( Situation Reaction TEST): Every day we face situations. In a psych test, you have 60 situations and you get 30 minutes to answer which means 30 seconds for each situation. Within 30 seconds you need to read 2–3 lines of the given situation and write the response. Your response should cover all the essentials of a situation. There may be more than one correct answer to a situation. Let’s see, suppose, you are walking to your school and a snake is crossing the road, what will you do? You may wait for the snake to pass and then go or you may use another path to go to school, you may kill the snake and go or you may inform other people so that they are not harmed. There can be more than one correct answer to a situation. These are not mathematic problems with only one correct answer.
Let us understand with an example how to attempt the SRTs. Suppose, there is a fire in the village spreading, what actions will you take? Whenever you have a fire there are two main things you need to do. The first is to take the people out who are stuck inside and the second is to put out the fire. There is a beautiful word for taking out the people who are stuck inside- evacuate and also for putting out the fire – extinguish. Once you have finished answering you should have covered all the essentials of it. So your answer should be; to evacuate people, give first aid, send them to the hospital if required, inform the fire brigade, and extinguish the fire with the help of others. You should write it in short and crisp sentences in a telegraphic language. You may separate the sentences by commas, and avoid writing “He will” at the beginning of each SRT imagine if you avoid this for 60 situations, in the time you save, you may be able to attempt another five of them. In a race to attempt all 60 SRTs candidates don’t cover all the essentials. Try and attempt approx 45 SRTs and the time saved of 15 SRTs should be utilized to do these 45 properly :).
The above mention details will help you in getting the test done appropriately.
