ISSB a dilemma

ISSB has a lot of myths associated with it. Those who get recommended say that its very easy, those who are not fortunate enough, say that its very tuff, its not merit based, “I performed well but they still rejected me”. “ Its impossible”.

What ever is said by others you have to realize that none if it matters. What matters is what you are and how you perform in that 4 days test. You abilities and talents would be checked there and if you have what it takes, then nothing can stop you from becoming an officer in Armed forces of Pakistan. You might have dreamed to be a fighter pilot, or sitting in a tank, or may be in a submarine, all these dreams can become realities if you follow a simple rule which is known as the art of war

“Know your self, know your enemy and know the time to strike”

What this means is that you first have to see and realize which abilities you have. Do you have confidence to face other people and challenges, are you able enough to face unexpected circumstances, are you bold enough to take on what others seem is impossible. If you then you KNOW YOUR SELF. Remember just knowing yourself increases your chances of success by 33%.

After analyzing your self , next step is to know what ISSB is all about. What are they looking for in the candidates and how can you become up to the mark and their requirements.

After this comes the third and final part of getting your self ready. Getting to know what is it that is not in you and is required by the ISSB. Please remember that there is no such attribute in the personality of a man that cannot be developed. What ever is needed in ISSB can be developed in your personality and you can be the best one for them. Knowing the time to strike comes here. You have to see in how much time you can prepare your self for the test and which batch are you going to apply.

When you have figured all this, then its time for you to realize your dreams.

Here I shall help you in the first two phases to make you (By grace of Almighty Allah) nations proud officers.

Journal Routine Of Five Days

DAY 1
• Reporting day:
(a) Reception.
(b) Checking of documents.

•  What to bring with you and what are prohibited items (explained below)
•  What are the Documents Required (explained below)

(c) Allotment of chest numbers.
(d) Candidates are photographed.
(e) Administration Staff's address
(f) Writing of unforgettable incident.
DAY 2

1st Testing day: Psychologist's day
(a) Opening Address by a Deputy President
(b) Psychological Tests:

• Intelligence Test 
• Psychological Tests

(c) Announcement of screening out result
(d) Remaining Psychological Tests (Screened out Candidates will not attend the subsequent tests)

DAY 3
2nd Testing day: GTO's day 

(a) Briefing
(b) Indoor Tasks:

• Group discussions.
• Group planning. 

(c) Outdoor Tasks:

• Progressive group tasks (PGT). 
• Half group tasks (HGT).

(d) Interview. 

DAY 4
3rd Testing day: GTO's day
(a) Outdoor Tasks:

• Individuals obstacles
• Command Task.
• Final group task. 

(b) Mutual assessment
(c) Interview (left overs)
Day 5

4th Testing day: Conference day

(a) Conference.
(b) Re-interview (if required)
(c) Payment of TA/DA
(d) Departure

What are the Documents Required

You are required to bring along the following ORIGINAL documents:
• Original Matric certificate issued by board. Only result card/ mark sheet will not be accepted.
• Detailed marks sheet or Result card of matric
• Those candidates who have not been issued with Matric Certificate by their concerned board should furnish a certificate in this regard signed only by the Secretary Board. Any such certificate issued by school/college will no be accepted.
• The candidates who appear with a "Duplicate" or "Revised" matric certificate or if they have amendments in their names or date of births, should provide certificate explaining the circumstances under which they were issued with "Duplicate" or "Revised" or Amended matric Certificate, signed only by the Secretary Board.
• The original certificate and marks sheet/result card of Intermediate (FA/FSc, DAE/D.Com/DBA/ICS) is mandatory.
• Appearing candidates who have completed FA/FSc part-I will bring original part-I marks sheet along with surety/hope certificate of college.
• In case of "O", "A" level, equivalence certificate and birth certificate are compulsory. PHOTOCOPY OF ANY CERTIFICATE WILL NOT BE ACCEPTABLE.
• Those candidates who have applied for the courses demanding qualifications higher than intermediate are also required to bring their superior degree/ certificates as mentioned in the concerned course advertisement.
• Domicile is a must for all those candidates of remote areas, who are eligible to apply on 45% marks in FA/FSc.
• No plastic coating is allowed on degrees/certificates except those which are already coated and cannot be removed.
• In case of non-possession of above-mentioned documents you will not be allowed to appear in the test and will be reverted back without paying traveling allowance.
• Before your arrival, you may contact GSO-2 (Selection) of your concerned ISSB on telephone number mentioned at the end or GSO-2(Selection) ISSB Kohat to clarify any doubt about educational certificates.

Importance of making friends at ISSB

One of the most important things you have to do at ISSB is to make friends. You have to start making friends right from the moment when you enter the ISSB centre gate, or perhaps before that e.g. Rahwali check post waiting room.

The question might come in your mind, why make friends with these guys who are there to get selected? They are my competitors. Why would I be friends with them? Or other thoughts might arise like “ Nahe he seems like a paindo”, “oh no he is from another city, ill make friends with guys who are from my own city”. Or “4 din ke tu bat hay, phir in sy tu kabhe milna he nahe ho ga, phir dostian bananay ka kia fada?”

Well the answer to all these questions fall in two categories. One is that its perhaps the first and only chance where you get to make friends from different parts of the country. Wouldn’t it be nice to have a friend from Lahore, another from Multan, one from Rawalpindi and another from Sahiwal, perhaps someone from Quetta, Karachi, Hayderabad or Peshawar. You will realize in the later stage that these friendships last quite long and are quite beneficial. I know I met some of the best guys here, some of them are still my very good friends.

The second category is of strategic alliances. Now what does that mean? It means that you have to make friends for your own good. Just think, you are at a new place where there are 60 or 100 guys, all strangers. For most of them this is the first time they are out of their city, in fact for some of them it’s the first time they are not going to spend night at their home. They might look OK but inside everyone is a little bit scared; the same kinds of feeling which you get on the first day at school. Everyone would be shy, not talking to one another. At that time if you break the “Glass ceiling” that can do wonders. If you start gapshap with others, like asking them where are they from, how did they reach ISSB, where did they study, it would make them feel that you are a nice guy and a friend. They would naturally be tilted towards you and you would feel that you are not in a strange place anymore.

What is most important in these friendship ties is that if these friends you make are also in your GTO task group, they can help you a lot. Those who lack confidence and who are scared would take you as your leader and your friend in time of need, giving you confidence and opportunity to look good before GTO. GTO looks at the fact that who is shining in the group, who is the one everyone looks up to as the reliable one, the one who is blue eyed boy of the rest of the group.

During the interview, and when GTO tasks end, all the members of the group are asked to rate their fellows. Now if others are your friends and take you as their savior, there are chances that they will rate you No.1. If that rating is supported by your performance in tasks and other tests of GTO, its very likely that you got the GTO’s vote of recommendation. The MOST IMPORTANT vote of all.

Bio Data Form

Bio data form is the first thing you encounter when you go for ISSB. Bio data form is a multi sheet form which requires different personal information regarding you. This form is very important.This form is with the interviewer on the third day of I.S.S.B. and he asked questions related to you by reading from that form.

This form contains some general questions which you need to answer. But there are some questions about which most of the candidates dont know about, and they face difficulty while filling that form, I' ll jot down some of those important questions here.

CAST and SUB CAST question:
One question is related to your CAST, which means your "zaat" and its second part is SUB CAST. What Cast means is whether you are "Raja" "Malik" "Chohadry" etc. and subcast means "Awan", " Janua", " chandio". For example if there is a candidate who'se name is "Raja Waqar Ali Awan" This means that RAJA is his cast and Awan Sub cast. If any of you dont know about your cast and sub cast its recommended that you ask your father and prepare the answer .

About your Date Of Birth:
Another question that is a bit tricky is related to your date of birth, you are asked to calculate your age to the day your are at ISSB. Meaning how may years, months, and days old are you today?

For instance my date of birth is 6th May 1982 and today its 4 April 2008, how should i calculate my Age? The answer is simple . Do simple subtraction

4 - 4 - 2008 (minus)
6 - 5 - 1982
gives you 25 years 10 months 28 days. This is what you have to write over there.

About your relatives in Armed Forces:
Another question asked is about your relatives who are in the armed forces of Pakistan. Now thats a bit tricky one, that not only ask for names and ranks, they also ask where they are posted now, and what is their current address, you have to prepare and ask them before going for ISSB what is their current address so that you are not worried over there and scratching your head

A frequent reader of my blog couple of days ago asked a very important question that previously slipped my mind. The question is related to the bio data form, This question is about writing some event in your life. The title of the event is written and you have to write one based on it from your life.

The topic can be "write about the most tragic event of your life" , "write about the unforgettable incident of your life" "the most happiest event of your life" "the most shocking event of your life"

The main purpose of this question is to get to know you better, to see your emotional level, to see what kind of things you can bear, and how eventful your life has been, and if the event is life changing, then how has it influenced your life.

I would highly recommend you to prepare all of these topics in a way that they truely are from your real life, and also off course positive. Tragic event can be the death of some close loved one, unforgettable incident can either be tragic or happy event, the word "unforgettable" has the meaning that its something that was so startling that you just cannot forget about it for the rest of your life, so it can be some happy event, like for example you met someone you take as hero, or you got a chance to be on live TV or something like this. Most shocking as the title says can be both positive or negative but again positive shock and happy shock is advised.

The reason why am I saying is the event should be from your real life is that they might ask you questions related to that event, especially the interviewer if he finds it interesting or has the suspicion that its a made up fake event, if its such an unforgettable event and it really happened then you might give a hint of it in any of the psychological tests, thats natural. You can only defend it if it actually happened, it cant be a mega event, it can be a simple event, like getting first position in 7th grade, or getting something really interesting as winning a debating compitition in your school or college, anything that is appealing and real can be written.

You have to right at most 7 to 10 lines which are more then enough, but it plays a key role in your I.S.S.B

Psychology Test

A question has been asked regarding psychology test as how can we prepare for it? What is it that they ask and what kind of answers they want?

The game of psychology is played everywhere, be it US Army, British Army, Indian Army or Pakistani Army. Be it ISSB or CSS, psychology tests are conducted to see if the candidate is suited for the job, whether he is capable to handle the job, whether he is mature and responsible enough or not.

To analyze this series of questions are asked and tests are conducted. Amazingly these questions no matter how well you prepare cant be deceived. They will get what psychologists need and they will provide an XRAY of your entire history, personality and life.

But there are ways by which you can dodge the tests and get the desired results.

What is required is that you practice these tests, get them in synchronization, meaning that if you answer a question in one test you should answer yes to the same type of question in another test. Psychologists analyze you by seeing exactly this whether you are lying or not by comparing the answers of different questions.

Here is a short summery of things to do to prepare for psychology tests.

1. Get to know about the kind of tests ( Ill give detail about it in another post).

2. Get to know about the kind of questions in each test.

3. Don’t cram the answers but develop a story about your self, hiding the few ugly parts which you don’t want to show in ISSB.

4. Make answers from that story so that they support each other.

Psychology test is the most important as psychologist gives his recommendation based on the tests. Meaning its one third of your ISSB relies on it.

Good And Bad Habbits

A very important question was asked by someone regarding a very important question of ISSB. This question is asked in different formats but the answer which they are looking for is related to your personality...

Questions are:

• Write 3 good and bad qualities of yourself?
• Write 3 good qualities of your friend or what do you like about your friend? (actually they are your qualities)
• Write 3 bad qualities of your friend or what is it that you dont like in your friend?
• Which are the three qualities of yours that your friends like? (your good qualities)
• Which are the three qualities of yours that your enemies like? ( your weaknesses)

What is the purpose of these questions?

The first purpose is to see if you know about your own self or not, its a SWOT analysis of your self (Strength, Weaknesses, Opportunities, Threats). If a person knows about him/her self he can handle any situation and has a better judgment power.

The second purpose of these questions like almost all of the questions at ISSB is to see if you are telling the truth or lies.

Since this is a PET question in ISSB its better to prepare it first. Like always, here again ill tell you to think about your self and try to come up with your answers. Because if you write your real weaknesses(bad habits) and good traits then you would be able to answer exactly the same else where if asked.

Here is what you have to think before answering these important questions...

• Dont Lie 100% . 20 or 30% is allowed :-) (write your good things which are in you and bad which are)
• Note if you are writing a bad habit it shouldnt be that bad which would make a negative impact on selectors e.g. "I lie, I cheat" etc.
• Dont try to be too positive which would clearly show you are lieing, e.g. "i am very honest, i never lie" etc. (everyone lies its human nature)
• If you are very creative try to portray you negatives in a way as if they appear to be positive...e.g. "Sometimes in order to keep up with my study schedule i cut my time which i plan to spend with my family" (This is an example....DO NOT COPY....)

Here are some of the examples of good habits.

• I try my level best to be punctual.
• I try to be social.
• I respect elders as for me respect of elders is very important

And for bad habits...

• I am not regular in prayes (if offcourse you are not, if you are, you should write in good habits).
• I take alot of tea. (Similar can be made, but such should be written at the end)
• I am a miser ( meaning Kanjoos)

I hope you have got the idea.

What you can do is write your answers and post a reply to me, to get them checked..