When you go for SSB after taking some solid coaching from an established coaching academy you have the following ingredients in your mindset:

• Since you have memorized all the 15 OLQs as well as their definitions, you are determined to display the possession of these OLQs at the SSB.
• Write about these OLQs in the Self-Description (SD) test.

Ingredients of SD

Among the various OLQs written about in the SD, you may have written, “I possess high will-power and am capable of overcoming all hurdles—-”

Sample Responses to SRT

You may have responded to some of the SRT in the following manner:

• Situation 1. You were going home, when it suddenly started raining heavily. You would: “halt under a shed, wait for the rain to subside and then go home.”
• Situation 2. You were asked by your mother to buy some snacks for a guest who had come home. When you were returning it started raining very heavily and the street got flooded. You would:” halt under a shed and reach home after the rain subsided.”
• Situation 3. You were going to attend an important meeting but got stuck in a traffic jam. You would: “Inform the organizer about your state and apologize for your inability to attend the meeting.”

Comments

There is nothing wrong with the responses. However, the responses taken collectively display a tendency to get stuck when confronted with obstacles. The responses definitely are not congruent with ‘high will-power.’

If the aspirant genuinely had high will-power his/her responses to the above 3 situations would have been like this:

• Situation 1: “You ran fast and reached home.”
• Situation 2: You visualized the following:
  • The guest would have come for an hour or so.
  • Since you had gone on foot to buy the snacks, the distance would have been not more than 300 m or so (overall 10-15 min job). When you started, it was not raining. In this short time, how much flooding could have taken place?
  • If you do not take the snacks home soon, then these snacks would go waste and mother would have to prepare some alternative.
  • The response could be: “wrapped the snacks in polythene and ran home.”

• Situation 3. “Informed the organizer about your state; logged in on mobile for online meeting or crossed the traffic jam by walking across on the side-walk and took another transport ahead of the traffic jam and reached in time.

Personal Notes

Incidentally Bangalore has a serious traffic problem. I was posted as Deputy President of 17 SSB at Bangalore. I used to commute to the office on a cycle. I could cross traffic jams by walking across on the side-walks or at times lifting my cycle overhead (my cycle is light). I do not remember writing about any OLQs in the SD during my SSB because I had no clue about the OLQs. I was recommended in my first attempt at SSB for NDA and learned about OLQs much later in life.

By: Col. MM Nehru