SSB is one of the toughest and longest interview or we can say it scans you thoroughly. Well SSB is not mere a test but a procedure, 5 days procedure where you go through different ways of testing your personality.

The candidates that clear written exams such as CDS, NDA, TA, INET and AFCAT are then called by respective military boards for SSB Interview. One can also appear for SSB Interview by getting shortlisted direct entries – TES, TGC, UES, SSC Tech etc.

The selected students then need to appear before a Service Selection Board for an Intelligence and Personality Test.

The SSB interviewer look for 15-character traits called “Officer Like Qualities”. The mechanism to check the done by the following procedure:

Day 0 (Reporting):

• The candidates are usually received at the station by an officer(s) of the board and from there they are taken to the selection center.

• After the candidates are settled in, an ‘Opening Address’ takes place where an officer of the board briefs the candidates of their stay for the next 5 days.

• Document Verification takes place after that where the original documents of the candidates are verified.

• In some boards (esp. Air Force) the Reporting day is regarded as the Day 1 of SSB and the testing starts on the same day

Day 1 (Screening):

The first day involves 3 tests:

• Picture Perception & Discussion Test (PP&DT)

• Officer Intelligence Rating Test (OIR Test):

The first day involves ‘Officer Intelligence Rating Test’ which consists of Verbal and Non-verbal Tests. The candidate gets two booklets having 40 questions each. The time allotted for each booklet is 15- 17 minutes.

Officer Intelligence Rating Test

The OIR stands for Officer’s Intelligence Rating. It is a test of the intelligence of a candidate. On the screening day, the tests start with the OIR. It is an aptitude test consisting of two sets. In these sets, verbal and non-verbal reasoning type questions are asked. Candidates are provided with confidential DIPR test booklets and an OMR sheet. Candidates have to answer as many as questions they can in a time interval of around 35 mins.

After the evaluation of answer sheets. An OIR rating of range 1-5 is given to each candidate. The better the OIR the more are the chances of getting in.

OIR-1 Outstanding

OIR-2 Excellent

OIR-3 Above Average

OIR-4 Average

OIR-5 Below Average

OIR Topics

Below are the topics from which questions are asked in the OIR test.

• Relationship

• Jumbled words

• Coding/Decoding

• Antonym/Synonyms

• Reconstruction of sentences

• One word substitution

• Odd one out

• Common sense and alphabet test

• Arithmetic questions

• Completion of series

• Odd figure out

• Locate the concealed figure

• Dice problem

• Fill in the correct figure

• Orientation of figure

• Miscellaneous

Picture Perception & Discussion Test (PP&DT):

This test can be further categorized into:

• Picture Perception: An image is displayed for the time period of 30 seconds and the candidates need to note down its details such as sex, age, and mood of the characters, action performed by them. The candidates then create a story based on that image in a time period of 4 minutes.

• Group Discussion: A group of 10-15 candidates is formed from the batch and each candidate needs to narrate his/her story and then discuss it in the group, to reach a common consensus.

The results are declared after which the shortlisted candidates are retained for the subsequent round of testing.