Wednesday, March 19, 2014

Psychological Tests - SSB

The psychological tests are conducted so as to assess the intelligence level of a candidate. The word ‘intelligence’ implies the ability to learn or understand, or the ability to respond to a new situation. The purpose of the psychological tests is to enable the aspiring candidates to manifest their innate ability to interact, tackle the problems and situations, heretofore unknown to them. Whatever the form, design or methodology adopted at an S.S.B., these tests are conducted so that the true nature of a candidate is found out, including those in hibernation.
The psychological tests are a set of problems or situations, depicted with the help of words, figures, diagrams, pictures, stories, designs, maps, etc., needing to be solved within a specified time limit. These tests can be broadly divided into two kinds :
A. Verbal Tests.  These are taken with the help of various problems through words. An ability to understand simple English is a sine qua non for all tests. These verbal tests include the questions pertaining to the following concepts :
 1. General Ability Test
 2. Jumbled Words Test
 3. Situation Test
 4. Relationship Test
(a) Analogy Test
(b) Antonym Test
 5. Common Sense Test
 6. Reasoning/Multiple Choice Test
 7. Code-Decoding Test
 8. Words Substitution Test
 9. Completion of Series Test
10. Words Association Test (WAT)
11. Direction Test
12. Sentence Formation Test
13. Alphabetical Test
14. Time Sequence Test
15. Blood Relation Test
16. Word Building Test
17. Natural Sequence Test
B. Non-verbal Tests. In this series, various problems are set out with the help of pictures, diagrams, designs, maps, patterns, series, etc., and the aspiring candidate is required to solve them as per the requirement of each question. The non-verbal tests include the following tests :
1. Picture/Story Test (TAT)
2. Matrices
3. Pen Picture/Self-Description Test
The psychologist, conducting the above tests at an S.S.B. takes pains to make the candidates understand various nuances of the tests with the help of illustrations, and entertains questions from them so as to clarify the tests in entirety. The candidates must listen to the psychologist carefully before the commencement of a test to obviate any misunderstanding during the actual conduct of tests, because then no queries are entertained. Many of the tests have no ‘right’ or ‘wrong’ answers, because the questions are so arranged as to bring out the innate personality traits; therefore, it is all the more necessary to understand and practise such tests. All tests are also prescribed a specified time-limit, and there is not made any concessions under any circumstances, whatsoever.

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