Recommended For NDA From 14 SSB Allahabad In My 1st Attempt

Hello, friends, I am Adarsh Kumar Amar and I live in Secunderabad I am currently studying in 12th in Army Public School Bolarum and would be giving my boards in march. I got recommended from 14 SSB Allahabad on 31st Jan 2020 in my first attempt for NDA 144 course(army). And I was declared medically fit by CO MH Allahabad on 08 Feb 2020I would like to share my journey with all defence aspirants and I hope it will inspire many of the people to succeed and give their best in their next SSB. I was preparing for jee from 11th class and in Aug 2019 I decided to start preparing for NDA exam. I come from an army background and joining the armed forces had always been my dream. From adventure, uniform, weapons to camaraderie, helpfulness and sports I love everything about the army, so choosing Army as a career option was pretty obvious.

My performance in written exam was fairly good and I was expecting 450+ Marks. In December the results for written exams were declared and I got through. I took a great risk by leaving the jee and board preparation from September and it had its bad effects I failed in most of my preboards and in Jan JEE exam I got just 86 percentile, although I was dejected I believed I would clear the SSB definitely. I removed every self doubt and started believing i will do it and this made me confident. Now coming to my main SSB experience..Our reporting was on 26th Jan 2020 at 1pm, total 100 students reported and after documentation we were divided into 2 batches 14 SSB had 50 candidates and same with 34 SSB.

I was in 14 SSB, in the documentation  3 candidates were returned because they didn’t carry the proper documents, I advise all of you to please carry the documents mentioned in the call letter, later we were alloted rooms and I made a few friends on the 1st dayThe next day was screening and in the morning I fell sick, I had severe headache and cold but I took medicine and went for the screening, we were given some instructions and later we were given  OIR booklets having 50 questions, first we were given 25 mins to solve the questions and the answer slip was collected, later we were again given the 2nd booklet having the same no of questions but time was 30 mins. I attempted 97 out of 100 and the difficulty level was very low.

Next test was PPDT(picture perception and discussion/description test), we were shown a very clear picture and I made a story on a defence aspirant, we were given just 3 minutes and I couldn’t complete my story fully. Then we were divided into 3 groups 2 were of freshers and one of the repeaters, in narration I was very confident and clear and completely narrated the full story. The results were announced by 2 PM and 27 out of 47 got screened in. I got a new chest no – 12The next day was psych test and I tried to be genuine and put the qualities that are present in me in my protagonist in TAT in WAT every response was spontaneous but you should practice WAT before going to ssb because time is very less, I could only do 45 SRT‘s because my speed was slow, try to write main ideas in SRT instead of writing full sentences, army needs leaders who are spontaneous and not writers or authors. After psych test 8 people were called randomly for interview. The rest were free for the day so we decided to go to Azad Park and museum, we enjoyed a lot and came back in the evening. 
On the 3rd day we had GTO day 1, on the first day we had Group discussion (GD), then we had GPE(group planning exercise).I lead the group and combined ideas to come to a common conclusion in GPE and nominated my friend to give a common solution.

In GD we gave chances to everyone to give their ideas, then we had lecturette, I spoke on child labour, the last exercise was Progress Group Task(PGT)There were 3 repeaters in our group so they were not letting anyone give ideas, I told them to cooperate with the group and incorporate everyone’s idea if we are stuck somewhere, they listened to me and started helping and listening to us and we did 3 out of 4 obstacles. In PGT, initially in the first 2 tasks I couldn’t give a single idea and I was afraid that I would not get recommended but I calmed myself and gave ideas in 3rd obstacle. Later another 10 people were called for interview. The next day was GTO day 2, the first task was individual obstacles(IO), we were told by our GTO sir to shout the name of our favourite actress in commando walk ; )I did 13 IO but people with 7 or 8 were also recommended In GOR(group obstacle race ) our war cry was “yeh dil mange more”I helped people in my group to pass through first and myself crossed in the last, but we lost the GOR :(The next task was HGT(Half Group Task) our group of 9 was divided into 2 groups of 5 and 4 people respectively, we all gave ideas in HGT and completed the task then there was Command Task(CT), I was given a difficult CT but I did it after some time then sir said me to change the approach and try another way then sir removed a structure but still I was able to do it.

Then finally in Final Group Task we completed the task easily then the remaining people were called for interview and my interview happened that day. I was confident and was well versed with current affairs, my strengths, weaknesses etc. I was asked a lot of defence-related questions, about my father’s postings, about arms and services, about my preferred regiment, about airforce aircraft (although my choice was army,I was extensively asked about airforce and I will tell you the reason later), about artillery etc. I was asked about PVC recipients before 1999 war. I didn’t knew about most of the airforce aircraft because I had prepared for the army extensively but didn’t expect him to throw those questions. He asked a lot of philosophical questions like my thoughts on why some people succeed while others fail why some are highly motivated and what was my philosophy of life. I was also asked the dimensions of the room, my speed while jogging I wasn’t asked a single question about G.K. or current affairs(I was surprised) But the type of questions vary from person to person , My friend was asked a lot of current affairs questions. I would rate my interview 8.5/10.Now the next day was D Day, Conference day Day 5 – conference Everyone was in their best formal dress.shoes shined hair combed.dress cleaned.everything checked.

The conference started at 8 am One by one we all were called in the conference hall Before my conference started the discussion happened for 5 mins My chest no. Flashed on the screen ,I entered the room 8 officers sitting, the board president and deputy president in the middle They asked me to sit on the chair and started by asking meaning of my name, then they asked me 2 SRT’s, the first one was what will you do if your friends don’t talk to you, the second one was what will you do if one of your car’s tyres gets flat, I answered them Then he asked me about my alternative career path told them I would join IIT kgp and do B Tech. Computer science, then they asked me about types of entries by which I can join army then my conference was over. After everyone’s conference was over by 1 :30 We were sitting in a room and waited for 25 mins. An officer came with the results and ,my heart started beating very fast.

He gave a small pep talk and announced the chest no’s of successful candidates 4,8,11 and then 12 and everything stopped for a moment for me, it was the best moment of my life, the feeling can’t be explained in words.then chest no. 24 was also announced, total 5 people were recommended in which 3 were freshers and 2 were repeaters who were already recommended in NDA 142 but were medically out. Then we were given 10 mins time to make a call, I called papa and told him I got recommended, later we were taken to fill the form and we completed documentation by 7 PM A wave of messages flooded the inbox, my family was happy so I was happy too. The medicals started from 1 Feb and took 8 days (Sunday is holiday in MH for SSB candidates) The medical conference happened on 8th Feb and out of 5, 2 (including me) were declared fit3 got TR (temporary rejection) and I hope they would clear the TR and join the academy with us. SSB is a test of Mansa, Vacha, Karma.U must have congruency in character to succeed not just in SSB but also in life, no one likes a person who says something else and does something else.