Thematic Apperception Test (TAT) is one of the major psychological tests conducted at Stage II of the SSB Interview. It is aimed at understanding the candidate’s personality, thinking pattern, and approach towards different situations. Contrary to a conventional written test, there is no right or wrong way of answering a TAT question. It is the candidate’s perception of the given situation and the way he or she develops the story that helps in understanding his or her personality.
What is TAT?
In TAT, candidates are shown ambiguous pictures and are asked to develop a story related to them. The pictures are not very clear about the situational context and allow the candidate to interpret the pictures according to his or her perception.
There are a total of 12 pictures shown in the TAT to a candidate. The first 11 pictures have some kind of situations, while the 12th picture is a blank slide. The blank slide also forms a situation in which the candidate is expected to build up a scenario himself or herself.
TAT Pattern and Timing
TAT test follows a standard time pattern. Candidates are allowed 30 seconds to observe a picture followed by 4 minutes for writing the story. The same time format applies to all 12 pictures. Hence, one hour is required to complete a TAT test.
It is always advised for a candidate to utilise these 30 seconds wisely by having a glance at the picture. One should not worry about complex English words and should think about creating a meaningful story within the given time.
How to Write a TAT Story?
A TAT story usually revolves around one protagonist. The candidate is expected to describe the situation depicted in the picture and develop a coherent plot.
A possible structure could consist of:
- Background information: what happened before the depicted situation?
- Present situation: what is the problem or situation about?
- Outcome: what action does the protagonist perform, and what is the outcome of the action?
The protagonist should be given a name and should generally be of comparable age and sex to the candidate, and he/she should act accordingly (the protagonist should act rather than just observe the situation). The story should be realistic and have a plausible outcome.
What Does TAT Assess?
TAT is not a test of creative writing ability. The psychologist studies the subject's responses to all stories together to determine his general thought processes and personality traits. Such qualities as resourcefulness, responsibility, leadership, cooperation, self-confidence, decision-making ability, and social adjustment can show up in the stories told.
Therefore, candidates should avoid trying to force all stories to involve some defense-related occupation, or to have a hero, or to make the protagonist unrealistically heroic. The responses should be realistic, practical, and should reflect the situation presented.
The main goal of TAT is to get a true picture of your thought process with stories. Candidates should practice observing, using logic, and expressing their thoughts clearly within the given time frame.
1st Image
Pooja’s needful decision
Pooja is a homemaker. All day, she does household chores and takes care of her children and in-laws. Her day starts early in the morning and ends when everyone else sleeps. One night, when everyone was asleep, Pooja was alone. She was thinking of starting a tailor shop. It had been very hard to run the house only on her husband’s salary. She had tailoring skills and experience, and she could also contribute to the family. The next day, she discussed this topic with her family. Everyone in the house liked the idea. Pooja arranged a tailoring machine from the market and started her tailoring job. Now everyone helps her with the household chores, and Pooja contributes to the household finances.
2nd Image
Sakshi’s bravery
Sakshi is 25 years old office girl. Every morning she waits for the bus at the bus stand. One morning, while waiting for the bus, one of her colleague mohit came up to her and told her that he could drop her off at the office. Mohit is not a friend of Sakshi, and Sakshi never talks to Mohit in the office. She said no to him. Mohit insisted with her again and again. Sakshi didn’t like his behaviour, and after all this, she got irritated and, with a slightly higher pitch, she finally said NO to him. After hearing Sakshi’s response, Mohit got embarrassed. He started his bike and went to the office. Sakshi was never an outspoken girl, but that day she stood up for herself and her voice.
3rd Image
Young and courageous Rishabh
Rishabh is a class 10th student who is a very studious and sporty kid. During lunch break, when he was finishing his lunch, he saw that school boy suddenly fall off from the bicycle and started crying in pain. Everyone surrounded the boy, but no one was helping him. Rishabh closed his lunch box and ran towards the boy. He lifted the cycle and helped the boy get up. He took the boy to the school medical room. The boy got better treatment. When principled heard about this incident, she called Rishabh’s parents. Her mother came up. The principal ma'am explained the whole incident and expressed that Rishabh is not an intelligent boy but a sensitive and helpful boy.
4th Image
Teacher’s test
Abhay is a newly joined English teacher at City Public School. Everyone in the school talks about him and his teaching skills. Mr. Ahmad is the school principal; he often takes routine checks in the school classes. One day he visited a class where Mr. Abhay was taking a class. He thought of checking that class and checking Mr. Abhay’s teaching skills. He sat for half an hour in the class and listened with great attentiveness. While leaving, he asked him a few questions, to which Mr. Abhay responded in a confident and clear way. Impressed by him, the principal complimented upon his teaching skills and left the class.
5th Image
Ramesh’s Intelligence
Ramesh is a school teacher in Sagarpur village. He used to go to school around 7 in the morning and come back around 3 in the afternoon. One afternoon, he saw 2 small girls carrying a water pot on their heads. In the evening, he visited the village sarpanch’s house. He learned that this year, because of low rainfall, people had to fetch water from nearby villages, and the village school didn’t have a separate washroom; that’s why girls didn’t want to go to school. Ramesh thought of cleaning the dirty pond with the help of villagers so people would not have to go to nearby villages to fetch water, and also explained the lack of washroom availability in the village school to the SDM. After a few months, the village pond got cleaned, and a girls' washroom started being built in the village school.
Villagers became happy and organised a meeting to felicitate Ramesh. Ramesh talked about girls' education and water conservation in the village. All the villagers supported his ideas and felicitated Ramesh.
6th Image
Ahana’s help
Ahana and Srishti are college best friends. Ahana was more into studies, and Srishti was a basketball champion. When college final exams were around the corner, Srishti told Ahana about some of her weak subjects. Ahana told Srishti not to worry, as with the right preparation, she could easily pass those subjects. Srishti believed Ahana wrote down from her notes. After 2 months of hard work and preparation, both of them finally gave their final papers. One day before the results day, Srishti called ahana as she was feeling very anxious about the coming results. Ahana calmed Srishti down, and both met at Srishti’s house, where Ahana told her to believe in herself and be confident and positive about the results.
The next day, when the results came out, Ahana and Srishti, along with the other batchmates, went to see the results on the notice board. Srishti refused to see the board, so Ahana went ahead and saw the results. She was very happy as she saw that Srishti not only passed but got very nice grades in all the subjects. She told Srishti about the results; Srishti didn’t believe her and checked the results. She got very happy and thanked Ahana for the help.
7th Image
Sam’s Hard Work
Sam was a notorious child in the whole school. He never listened to his parents and teachers. Sam aspires to join the forces. One day, he went to a bank with her mother. There he accidentally met an army officer. He got the chance to talk with him. Sam expressed his desire to join the army and asked how to join the forces. The officer advised him to study hard, work on physical fitness, and include discipline in his life. That day, Sam went home and decided that he would do exactly what has been told by the officer. From the next day, he started waking up early, going for a run, try to focus on his class subjects. After 2-3 months, his school organised a 100-meter running competition in which Sam got 1st place in the competition. He was awarded in front of the whole school. His parents and teachers felt proud of him.
8th Image
Parul and Friends
Daisy High School is one of the most prestigious schools in the city. One day, Parul and her friends saw the notice board during the lunch break. The school was organising an awareness campaign competition on water conservation. Parul decided to make pamphlets and posters, and with all her friends, she would distribute them throughout the school and in her society. She, with the help of her friends, made several pamphlets and paintings and distributed them all over the school and in her locality. The school principal and teacher found her campaign very interesting. They congratulated and facilitated Parul and her friends.
9th Image
Radha and her intelligence
Radha, a 15-year-old girl,l lives with her father and her mother. Her father is a farmer. For the past 2 years, her family has been suffering due to less crops production in the field. She was not able to see the ongoing situation. One day, a ngo visited her school and talked about how people use organic materials and get good crops, which financially helps them. Radha was amazed to hear that. She expressed her curiosity to one of the ngo member, Latika. And took her to his home. Latika explained everything to Radha’s parents about how they can get good production after doing organic farming. Radha’s parents got convinced, but with a heavy heart. Later, after several months,s when they saw the quality and quantity of the crops, ps their happiness was over the seventh sky. Radhadha was happy, and she thanked Latikaa, the ngo work, er for the help.
10th Image
Shobhit’s leadership
Shobhit works at a cycle-making company. He is a senior employee of the company and has been working for them for the past 10 years. For the past 1-2 years, the employees are tensed with the low wages. After so many applications and requests, the company is not ready to hike up the salary. Earlier, the company told us about the hike but later refused. Shobhit, as a senior employee,e tried to talk to the management team and the hr, but all in vain. One day, all the workers reached Shobhit’s place and asked for a solution. After listening to each of them, Shobhit expressed his desire for a peaceful sit-in protest. Everyone agreed and had a peaceful but effective sit-in protest,t and then the senior officials got ready for the hike and agreed to all the demands. Shobhit and all the employees were happy, and they thanked Shobhit.
