Day-3 Group testing in SSB Interview. What the Group Testing Officer- GTO is looking for? Basis of group Testing.

Group Testing is very important part of SSB Interview process. Group Testing is based on the theory of Gestalt, wherein the Group Testing Officer- GTO looks at the candidates performing in a group, then gradually singles them out and gives a closer look and finally once again observes them perform in the group. There are a total of nine tasks/activities conducted by the GTO. These are divided into three distinct phases as described below.

 Basic Series

 In the basic series there are four tasks namely Group Discussion (GD) (two rounds), Group Planning Exercise (GPE), Progressive Group Task (PGT) and the Group Obstacle Race (GOR). All these tasks are group tasks and performance in these is very important. In this series the group goes through three stages of development. The first stage is called the exploration stage. As the candidates are unfamiliar to each other, they explore and try to gauge each other's abilities. This typically happens during the two rounds of the GD. The second stage is the competition stage which happens during the GPE The candidates tend to impose their supremacy on others and try to get control of the group. Thus, this task generates a lot of heat and most often the group is unable to arrive at a conclusion. The exploration continues through the PGT as this is a practical field work. The tendency of the candidates will be to take control of the activity and other group members, The third one is the cooperation phase when the group realizes that unless they pool in their abilities and work as a team they will not succeed. This happens in the GOR when the groups are made to race against the other groups. After this task, a cohesive group gets formed. Firstly the struggle for supremacy and later the realization that the team is more important than individual is an imporatnt aspect of group testing. Candidates understanding this right from the word go stand to do well with the GTO because just after GOR the activities are more of individual in nature and you hardly get a chance to show your team abilities again. The belief is, brilliant individuals who can't be team players are of no use to the organisation and thus even if a candidate proves to be very good individually but not able to cope up in a team will definitely fail.

Confirmatory Series

The confirmatory series comprises of four tasks/activities, namely Half Group Task (HGT), Lecturette (Lec), Individual Obstacles (IO) and the Command Task (CT). Of this, normally the IO and CT are done on the second GTO testing day. In this series the Group Testing Officer- GTO resolves his queries on each candidate by focusing more intensely on individuals as most of these tasks are individual in nature. 

Final Series

 This series consists of only one task, namely the Final Group Task (FGT). This is basically for the Group Testing Officer- GTO to give a final look at the candidates performing in group (this is a group task) before winding up the test series. The point to understand is that it is important to do well in all the series, and more importantly in the basic series. If you have not done well in the basic series your chances of getting recommended by the GTO will be very low. However, this does not mean that having done well in the basic series you can relax in the confirmatory and final series. 

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