SSB Guide for candidates : Practice set of questions for PPDT AND TAT

Picture Perception and Discussion Test (PPDT) and Thematic Apperception Test (TAT) exercises

Picture Perception and Discussion Test (PP&DT)

Rules :

1. You are given 30 seconds to view picture.

2. With in next one minute, you have to fill a ractangular box and action of the story.
Inside ractangular box, you need to fill age, sex and mood of the charaters you see in the picture.

Under ACTION heading, you are supposed to write what is happening in story with in one line.

3. Next 4 minutes are given to write the story.

Note : remember the quality of the picture shown there is very poor and hazy, you won't be able to identify minor objects.

How to write a story

You need to include the following points in your story

1. Make a positive story with a leading character

2. Bring a problem in story

3. Include innovative ideas to solve that problem
4. End the story properly
5. If you are female, then make a female lead character in the picture (you would not find a picture where all are males in picture)
6. Also remember that story must represent you, how do you think, how do you react in that situations, include these things in your story.They also instruct you to add your emotions and feelings in story.

NOTE : Remember these are psychological test, I do not know what actually they look for and how they read stories, but I am giving you my versions of the story to the best of my knowledge and belief.

If you are unprepared for the PPDT exam, give this trick a chance it will work :
keep some readymade stories in mind, pick some from followings, when you will be there in exam, believe me picture will be so blur that you can pick any of the readymade story.

I don't recommend this but unfortunately this works !

1.

Samunder used to make ceramic surahi and sell them. He obsered a great decline in his earning since very few were interest in buying ceramic surahi even in the rural areas he was not selling many. It was because of the growing no. of water purifiers in every household. The surahi had been losing its position from the households. One day while he was taking rest he felt something in his pocket is bothering him. He checked and found it was stone, but that stone was glistering. He put stress on his mind and found it came from the river he visited in morning. There he got the idea of making surahi which also shines like this stone. He ground that stone and mixed with clay and made a surahi. later he brought other stones of different colors and then many different patterns were started coming on surahi. now everybody wanted to buy surahi for their houses. one day while he was on his way to other city to sell surahies, a man in suit came to him and inquired about those surahies. He liked those surahies and offered samunder to sell them online. after six months many e-commerce website were selling samunder's surahies. Now he do not wander place to place to sell surahis.

2.

Ramesh has just come out from the prison after serving his sentence over theft attempt. He tried to snatch a lady's purse and run away but a woman hold his leg and fought with him till crowd captured him and hand him over to police. Now he seeks revenge from the lady. He bought a knife and went to her house in night. He observed that woman's husband is no longer alive and has only one child. He introspect himself and asked himself what he has been doing in life. He felt very bad about himself. He then woke that lady up and told her about everything and asked lady to hand him over to police, but she apologised him. the next day he again come to meet that lady and told him that now he want to work in order to improve the life of other people who come out of jail. He told her about his plan of starting a NGO who will support the man after sentence serving. They together started a NGO which looks after the family of man who are behind bars and help them to provide jobs after their sentence completes.

3.

John works as a software engineering in encrpt pvt. Ltd. Company. One day he got a call from the director of music company. They decided to meet at a coffee shop. The director told him that they are going to launch an album after six months which is being produced by some of the top musical artists in our country and this album is going to be huge hit. But there is a inevitable problem of piracy they face because of which we loses a big amount of money in market. John asked a time period of three months. He made a team of engineers of web technology, data encrpytion and data transfer over internet. After entensive research they build a tool over web that can self destroy data after first use. They made a presentation and presented in front of music company. They informed them music will be distributed over web rather on disks, registered user can listen song once for free, after that they have to pay 1 rs. To listen. They can download as many time as they want for 1rs. Each time, and each song can be listened only once after that it would erase itself. Company liked the idea of John’s team and they finalised deal with them. John and team developed a sophisticated website for music to launch and launched music successfully. Later this became the most favourite way of launching music for music companies.

4.

Ankur is studing in his final year of mechanical engineering. One day while he was going to his college his bike tire got punchered. He went to nearby bike mechanic and asked him to make tire good. Mechanic opened tire and saw the tube has been torn. He recommended Ankur to replace tube with new tube, but ankur had not bring that much money and also he was getting late. The mechanic somehow repaired tube and bike was again ready to run. While ankur was riding back to his college, he thought about the mechanic that he has been working as mechanic for a long time, not moving to higher rank, if he had been in a company he might have been promoted to upper level till now. Also his skill level has reached to much higher level as he has been working for so long, and still not getting as much salary as deserved. Ankur shared this thought with his friends. They decided to help that mechanic and many such other people who are uneducated but skilled. They persuaded that mechanic to join a degree course of six months which he completed in just three months. After they helped him to bring loan from the bank and started his own shop. Later his shop became the most popular in the area.

5.

Mukesh is a medical student lives in a colony where garbage problem is creating a lot of health issues. Many parents are often visiting doctors about the health of their children. Most of these problems are associated with uncleanliness of place. He decided to launch a drive to clean their colony. He went to schools where children of this colony are studying and took their classes about health issues and made them understand how cleanliness leads to health. He then asked children to bring their parents to the playground on a specific day where they would all formulate a procedure to effectively remove garbage from the places. He then went to all the rag pickers who roam around the colony. There in the meeting he suggested that outside every house there would be two dustbins, each for wet and dry wastage which would be picked by these rag pickers daily. All the residents agreed and formulate an amount of money which each house will pay to those rag pickers at the end of the month. Just after one month the whole scenery of the colony changed and there was a huge drop in the no. of people who were getting sick.

6.

Salim was with his neighbour’s son in the hospital when his neighbour was declared dead by doctors. He was suffering from blood cancer, His blood type is very rare among population and they could not find donor at the time. He consulted doctors about availability of donors, doctors told him that donors are available but we are only restricted to our storage capacity, there is no way to find more donors though there are many people who will help if asked on time. Then he decided to create a website that will show the blood groups of people of that area along with their contact numbers. He started his plan from school of that neighbour’s son. He knew school conducted blood group test of admitted students. He appealed school authority to share that data with his website. He grew database school by school and from children to their parents. Later that website was linked with the website of government hospitals. This information helped a lot in cases of blood cancer and accidents. Later government decided to endorse and fund salim’s website and take this project to other cities of India as well.

7.

Anup lives with his wife and children. Just along with their house, there was a house of Mr. and Mrs. Mehta. They often fight and shouting could be heard in the whole neighbourhood. Mrs. Mehta’s husband used to drink a lot. One day there was a big fight between the couple; Anup heard the noises of breaking things. Mrs. Mehta came out of their house weeping. Anup and his wife also came out of their house and tried to calm Mrs. Mehta. Her husband was too drunk he went to hit his wife but Anup restrained him from doing it. Anup threatened Mr. Mehta to complain about him of domestic violence. Mr. Mehta left that place. Anup told Mrs. Mehta that domestic violence occurs because wives endure it. He suggested Mrs. Mehta to take up a job, she would not only gain confidence in her but also her and her children’s future would also become secure. Mr. Mehta has been always an incorrigible drunkard. Anup gathered other elder and sane persons of the society and went to Mehta’s house. Anup’s idea was to give him a warning of social rejection if he continues to behave like that. They firmly told him how his behaviour is destroying their children’s future. Anup with some other members starting spending time with Mr. Mehta so that they can help him leave drinking. As time passed Mr. Mehta has improved himself a lot and now living happily with his family.

8.

Krishan was a farmer of a village. Many farmers of this village used to grow vegetables and fruits. Many farmers were having a huge loss as stray animals used to come to fields in night and ate their fruits and vegetables and also there were many thefts of fruits and vegetables were going on in the night. Krishan called panchayat to address this issue. Krishan proposed that those who do the farming of fruits and vegetables out of them 4 or 5 members will be selected to watch the fields every day turn by turn. One day it was krishan’s turn to go to fields. That day weather was very upset. He asked other farmers to come with him and everybody refused and thought today no animals or thieves can come because to storm. But krishan decided to go to fields alone. When he went to field he saw that the river bank has broken and water was being flooded into the fields. He immediately started repairing it but was not able to do it alone. He then cut some trees and along with the bank and pour leaves and mud between them to make a temporary stoppage. He then rushed back to village and called others farmers. All of them together were able to repair the flooding of water into fields.

9.

Manish hails from a small village. His village used to receive much water from rain in rainy season but they often felt the shortage of water as there were no lakes to provide water when needed. His village was surrounded by hills. He suggested his father that they can build a concrete pond high above the ground which will collect water coming from hills in rainy season and that water could be used to facilitate fields when needed. His father called the panchayat and brought this issue. The surpanch of the village agreed to use funds to build that pond. All the villagers helped to build the pond. A committee comprises of elders was formed to distribute water so that no conflict occurs over water distribution. Now villagers and use that water whenever needed. Later farmers of the other villagers took inspiration from their work and build ponds in their villages too.

10.

11.

Kishan is the school principle in outskirt of a city. He read an article in newspaper which discusses the issue of aimlessness in today’s youngster. The writer of the author placed his thoughts very logically how this is leading to high job dissatisfaction in India. Krishan knew that children must understand his interest in early life which would be advanced and groomed to make their aptitude. He held all staff meeting and formulated a plan to induce his idea in school academics. He then decided to address all the children of schools with their parents on the day of parent teacher meeting. He there represented his plan to make academics more practical and skill-centric from early stage. He informed everybody that special subject classes would be held on weekends. Each student is expected to attend whichever subject’s class he wants to join. The class rules will be completely different from typical class environment. There will be no uniform for those classes, no school bags and copies are supposed to bring. Everybody was excited what would happen in these classes. He decided to take first such class by himself. He went to children and asked what they learned in today’s class. Children replied the pythagoras theorem. He then brought out all the children near a tree and taught them how to find the length of that tree just with a stick. Day by Day more students started joining those classes and school started performing in many inter school competitions.

12.

Anup is called by his school principal in head office. The principal was holding his scorecard of recent midterm exams. As Anup topped that examination, he was called to participate in state level inter-school GK competition. Principal told him to form teams with other students and start preparing for the competition. Anup got very excited and started thinking about the other students whom he wanted to form a team with. He again went to principal’s office next day and told him that he did not select any students as his team members. He suggested a plan to brought out talented students. He suggested that every week an exam will be held of those students who are interested in GK competition. That exam will gradually cover the syllabus of the competition and after every exam student will be dropped and selected based on their scores. The principle was very impressed with his suggestion and decided to select the same pattern for the exam which has been proposed for actual competition. After few weeks of exam they had three top students. As Anup was top scorer he was selected as team captain to represent his school. When they went to actual competition they found it quite familiar they were doing from past few weeks and performed well and won first prize in the competition. Then they all started preparing for the national level.

13.

There has been an exodus of people of a village near border. There has been a lot of deaths because of the firing and bombings near border. Army officer Darpan is posted in that area. He along with his team went to villagers and tried to persuade the villagers not to go anywhere. They gave them assurance that army will take their issue to government and provide them security. Darpan and his team decided to live with villagers till issue is resolved and they can get confidence of their security. Darpan took this issue to higher officers and informed them about the whole situation. Darpan with his higher officers held a meeting with government officials in order to resolve the issue of shooting. They presented the statistics of deaths in nearby villages because of shootings, they also told them that villages near the border of our oppsite side also complains about mishap during shootings and bombings. Government of both countries met to resolve the issue. Villagers from both sides were invited to talk. Both government signed memorandum of understanding (MoU) that areas that falls along with village border and their agriculture lands would be used to fight. Both the armies will decrease their strenghts on those areas and government will compensate the families affected by border shootings. Villagers were very happy with these resolution.

14.

Rahul along with his class and teachers went to visit a NGO as part of NSS activity. That NGO was helping poor people suffering from diseases those medical costs are very high and for them who are unable to pay their medical expences. There he met a woman who was suffering from cancer. She was not getting the full dose of medicines. As there were many patients in that NGO and funds were limited. Rahul wrote the medicine names from patient’s prescriptions. After visiting the NGO, he started searching about cheap medicine those could be given in place of those medicines. He went to visit his biological teachers, he met pharmaceutical shops and some well known ayurvedic and homopethic practioners. He later went back to NGO and suggested some ayurvedic and homopethic medicines available in place of those costly medicines that are being used for patients. He also suggested NGO to use generic medicines as their cost is way cheaper. NGO volunteers told that they are aware of generic drugs but they are not available in our area. Rahul plan to send an application of local MLA and request them to set up a generic drug shop. Rahul brought that intiative to their principal and took the signature of students and teachers of the whole school and forwarded their application to MLA. MLA happily accepted their purposal and promised them to set up shop as soon as possible.

15.

Rehman was working as chief civil engineer in urban development authority. He was recently trasferred into new district. While having look on pending projects he got to know that area is suffering from floods that affect in rainy season and cost state government a lot of trouble. He with his team went to visit that area. He observed that there was a bridge over river and that was too old, bridge condition was also not well. He along with his team prepared a report over the whole situation. They included how the solution of building a dam on river would cure all the problems of not only flood but lack of electrity and submitted their report to higher authority to seek purposal and funds to build dams. The ministry accepted their purposal and appointed Rehman as head of the project. Rehman immediately started working on that project and formed a team of engineers. He also sought advised of nearby villages and colonies who will be affected after dam. He set up and meeting with all the people who are concerned about the dam building. Farmer’s concern was that water would be restricted if dam is build, Rehman assured them the water will be released as per their demands during cultivation. He also assurred city people that there would be road above the dam. After six months of construction, A dam was ready to serve people of that city.

16.

Jackson was going to leave her daughter to the school. She had her board exam going on. As he was crossing a sharp turn, a boy around the age of her daughter and in school uniform lost the control of his bicycle and hit with their car. Jackson was able to control the vehicle on time as he was going very slow over the turn. He immediatley got out of the car and went to the boy. Luckily boy was not injured severely, he got some bruises and scratches on skin. He brought first-aid kit from the car and bandaged his wounds. He dropped the boy himself to school and informed his parents as well. while coming back he stopped and observed that turn. He then went to traffic police department and filed an RTI to request accidents location records for the past five years. After analysing the records he found that the turn is the most notorious black spot of the city. He immediately filed an application to police department to put a black spot hoarding sign on that turn. Then he decided to took initiative to treat that accidental spot. He arranged his RTI records as evidence with his application of local MLA. He also brought that child's parent with him. Minister promised them to immediately start rectifying that spot and apologized for the negligence of the authority. Today that black spot has been treated by widening the road and accidents ratio over the turn has almost vanished.

17.

Deepak was in 12th class. One day he saw a red cross bus which came to their colony to collect blood from volunteer donors. He went and donated his blood. He gathered information about blood donation from doctors. He got to know that there is a acute shortage of blood in India, and even though statistics of college going students giving blood donors is very low in India as compared to other countries. He then decided to persuade his friend and family members to donate their blood. He thought of a idea of cycle campaign. He persuaded some of his friends to join his campaign and then they went to blood bank and told about the idea of their cycle campaign. they told officials that they will go to remote areas on cycle and spread information about blood donation. They also requested one or two officials to come with them. Blood bank gave them initial training about collecting blood and about first aid and send one doctor with them. They asked village panchayat to set up a meeting with villagers about blood donation.they started their journey in the morning visiting mainly schools and villages. They gave presentation which informed villagers about facts of blood donation. they told them that it has no effect on human body, rather beneficial of cancer and heart diseases. They kept on going with presentation information and collecting blood. They were happy to see that all of their blood bags were filled by evening. They submitted their collected bags to blood bank.