SSB Psychological test - Word association test (WAT)

Word association test or WAT is one of the famous tests of psychology. The main purpose of this test is to get a clear idea about a candidates thinking. You may be wondering how can they check our thinking ? well its quite simple actually. Humans think about something if they get some time, but if there is no time at all then we act on the very first thought that comes in our mind.

What happens in this test is that you are shown a word on which you have to make a sentence. The problem is that you only have 15 seconds to think and write a sentence on that particular word. Words rage from 60. Most of the words are repeated in order to see if the candidate has the same mode of thinking or not, usually after 15 20 sentences candidate's mind begins to give up thinking and he/she starts writing whatever comes in mind in split of a second, he doesn't know what he has written in the test when it finishes , the test actually get the true thinking of the candidate on the paper.

Words are quite simple, like flower, garden, country, mother, girl, boy or they can be difficult like lie, defeat, fear, coward, death. These words are difficult in the sense as they have negative thought with them. If some candidate has fear of something he might write something related to it.

In word association test its not necessary to have that word in sentence, something associating to it can also be written.

like for word GARDEN sentences can be

1. There is a garden in front of my house.
2. Flowers are beautiful
3. I go for jogging in the morning.
4. There are many trees in the garden.

Now in these examples 1 and 4 are although correct but they are childish, psychologist would not consider them that much,. Flowers are beautiful is an association with garden as flowers which are beautiful might be in a garden, same goes for jogging, a person might go for jogging in a garden. But this sentence is of more interest to psychologist as he would capture the idea that the candidate goes for jogging and other healthy activities ( a positive sign).

Similarly for sentence of MOTHER

1. I love my mother
2. I Respect elders
3. I love India

are possible sentences. I love my mother would so your affectionate side, I respect elders means you respect your mother....( Note: if you write this sentence here and you write in you good habits that you respect your elders, then it would match, it would show that you truly respect elders that's why your thought process thinks of respect.) I love India is also a good sentence as India is our mother land and it would show that candidate is a true patriot.

For word like FEAR sentences can be

1. I fear God
2. child is afraid of dark
3. he is afraid he would fail

Now these sentences are showing a complete contrast. Fear God is excellent as peoples only fear Gods and nothing else. But in case of fear of dark, psychologist would instantly guess that the candidate has some issue with dark, "he is afraid he would fail" is a totally negative sentence as it clearly shows that the candidate is not confident and is not sure of his success.

NOTE: From the above examples you might have now realized that this test is not something to be taken as a joke, psychologist develops his perception about you on the sentences you write, if you joke around by writing silly sentences it can create big trouble for you. So practice such sentences as much as possible in order increase your speed, and increasing your thinking ability.

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Regards

Hosla

B.A, M.A (Psychology)

Specialist of GTO Tasks

Having 11 years of teaching experience as a GTO Instructor