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As far as the basic intelligence and academic achievements of the aspirants of the officer-cadre in
the Armed forces is concerned, the written test conducted by the Union Public Service Commission
(NDA and CDSE) takes a good care of this aspect. In cases of direct entries, a minimum percentage of
marks in graduation or post graduation examination is laid down as essential qualification.

But wars are not won with mere bookish knowledge or academic intelligence as we saw in the previous
chapters. Courage, Grit, Resourcefulness, Tact, Situational intelligence, manoeuvrability, Leadership and
Decision-making are some of such qualities essential to succeed in A war. It is a fact that these qualities are
developed by the influence of environment and not essentially people with high academic achievements
possess these qualities also. However, a man without these qualities may become anything but not a
successful warrior. It is for this reason; Services Selection Boards primarily test the qualities (the OLQ
profile) of the aspirants.

The Officer Like Qualities (the OLQs) once acquired and assimilated in the personality, are
reflected in the overall behaviour of an individual. Not going into the psychological definition of
behaviour and its constituents, it is worth noticing what are the dimension or planes of behaviour, overt
or covert. The three planes or dimensions of behaviour are—Thoughts, Words and Actions. It is
presumed and observed that qualities are in all these three dimensions of behaviour. For example, if a
person has high intellectual ability, his thoughts well bear the testimony of it. His words and actions too
bear the intellectual characteristic. We may consider yet another example. You must have seen people
who have very limited social circle; they feel shy in initiating friendship and keep telling their children
about losses of having large friend circle, social parties and gatherings. Psychologically, such person
can be called as introvert. His introversion and limited social needs are well reflected in his thoughts,
words and actions. It is also a fact that in social situation behaviour is influenced by ‘the element of
desirability’. A person tries to hide his unpleasant feelings and thoughts for the fear of rejection. At the
same time due to force of social norms, customs and etiquettes, people are bound to behave in a
desirable direction. However, controlled expression of aggression or negative emotions does not negate
our assumption that qualities of an individual are reflected on all the behavioural dimensions i.e.
thoughts, words and actions.
Performance Versus Potential—The approach of the Service Selection Boards is to fathom your
level of potential by a deep and intensive probing of your qualities. They go by the premise that your
manifested performance (in various tests and examinations) may not be a true indication of your
potential. In majority of cases the potential of an individual is not fully realised. The SSBs therefore,
not only ‘observe’ the level of demonstrated performance but also make a fair guesswork of what could
be your achievable level. Such guesswork is based on a dispassionate assessment on your assets and
liabilities and trainability of factors in the OLQ’s profile. We may refer inference of trainability at an
appropriate time and place later on.
Thoughts are Examined by Psychologist—In practical sense and suitable in our context, the term
‘thought’ includes intelligence, knowledge, information, aptitude, perceptual patterns, apperceptions,
psychological energy, ego, defence mechanisms, experience, emotions and all those factors which can
be conventionally be called as ‘psychological’.
Psychologist has a battery of tests to administer. His tools include basic intelligence test, tests of
imagination (picture story writing test and word association test), situation reaction test and the test of
self-concept (self-description). We will see psychological tests in detail later.
Action Are Examined By Group Testing Officer. The Group Testing Officer makes you ‘perform’.
While you ‘act’ according to the instructions given by the GTO, he gets enough input to evaluate your
actions. GTO too has a battery of tests. His test battery ranges from verbal to motor and from
individual to group situation. We will discuss the tests and tasks given by the GTO separately.
Words (Spoken Communication) Are Examined by Interviewing Officer. Verbal or more aptly,
spoken communication is a very strong indicator of your qualities (personality). The Armed Forces
have included the system of a scrupulous and comprehensive personal interview in the selection process
of officers. A trained interviewing officer will assess your OLQ’s profile by taking inputs from your
words.