@ Arif Sab
Dera u reli r doing a tremendous job.i ve a small confusion.whether v shud say ASSALAM ALIKUm or Good morning etc?
how shud v greet at psychological interview and Viva?
shud v ask for permission b4 entering the room?
when a question is asked by a member shud v vew eye contact only with that person or shud v explain our point with having eye contact to all?
Regards

@superbguy
Quoting books on religious topics is never prohibited. I would prefer to mention such religious books that present study on Islamic views regarding contemporary issues, Islam's economic system, Islamic concept of Jihad etc.

@tadap
Yes, I consider it a very good choice. Sportsmens' personalities are examples of enthusiasm, competitive spirit and fair play.

@abeerseh
The call letter for psychological / interviews contains Roll numbers of your whole group. Also when you meet them on Psych Day-1, you can discuss strategies for group activities on Day-2. Psych exams are conducted on two consecutive days (if the second day is not a Sunday). The timing is normally from 8 AM to 3 PM.

@waseem gurmani
Last year there was a gap of two weeks (to two months) between psych exams and intervews. Hope it will remain like this for 2009 also. And yes, you have extracted almost all the important & relavant stuff.

@Moon Child
Saying 'Salam' is a better choice.
One should ask for permission before entering the room and for farewell one may say 'it was a pleasure meeting you and Khuda Hafiz/ Assalam o Alaikum'.
Eye contact with the person who asked you the question is a must. You may also give a glance to the other members at times. But when the questioner is listening to you attentively while looking at you, you should remain the eye contact with confidence.

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Long Live my Homeland

Arif Bhai!
May Allah bless you and fulfil your aspirations and dreams. You are doing an excellent job.
what suggestion would you like to give to candidates who come from other ccities regarding time management i.e. when to arrive the city of their centre, how much time needed to mentally prepare for taking exam, etc.;i n the light of your experience.
Regards.

Thanks for the kind words.
I think you should reach the city one day before the exam. Make a visit to the examination center and have a nice sleep on the night before the exam. Reach early in the morning.

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Long Live my Homeland

After group discussions and comand task, you are given a sheet and you are asked to grade the other group members (excluding yourslef) according to your own observation (from positions, say, 1 to 7). At that juncture, you should remain impartial and grade them according to their performance as the psych panel, during your interview, can ask you the reason of your grading of a certain person.

Psychological Interview:

The last task on the Psychological Test (Day-2) is an interview with the psychological panel. It is usually conducted in a light environment. They may ask you about your family and educational background, your job experiences (if any), your hobbies and interests. They may also ask about your preferred group service, the reason why you preferred it over the other groups, what can you do after joining that group, are there any changes you wish to bring about, what will you do if you are given a certain position or you are caught in a situation (e.g. you are made DCO of a city, or, you are DPO and a balst has occurred in your area) etc. They sometimes also ask your observations of the group discussion and command task, how do you analyze your own and others' performance etc. They may also ask simple questions on current affairs etc.
The basic purpose is to analyze your personality and also to clarify or confirm the observations that they had from your various psych day-1 and -2 tests.

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Long Live my Homeland

I had a good time in group discussions. Though, I was interrupted a couple of times in not a very nice manner, still I had kept my calm. I had performed well in the command task and thus, my confidence was high.

I was the fourth to go for the psych interview. The 1st interview took some 40 minutes, 2nd around 10 minutes and third one almost 25 minutes. Now it was my turn.

I entered the room with a smile and said 'Assalam o Alaikum'. I was asked to have a seat and I obeyed. Then questions asked were as under:

What is your family background? Are you married or single? and similar personal questions.
They asked about my current job at a multinational firm that I must have visited abroad. I said yes, and I also told them that I withdrew from a Europe training tour due to the CSS written exams, but now after passing it I had no regrets.
(the language was mostly Urdu and I replied in the same language)
Then they asked, "What were you saying in the group discussion about the judiciary?".
I repeated my stance about independence of judiciary and government's role in dealing with this movement and told them that all govts in such situations take similar decisions.
"Why do you prefer to go for police?"
I replied about my past experience of working with intelligence agencies, and my liking of a uniform service that also suits our family trend, and in the end I said I wish to help our police technically. In this domain much can be done. We always hear the news 'Criminals escaped taking advantage of darkness'. Why not our police takes advantage of the same darkness to capture them? cuz they don't have the night vision capabilities... they still dont have IT and technical skills and equipment that they need to fight with crime. I wish to do this when I join Police (and all such stuff).....
They asked "What about the death of BB? was it also a technical lapse? wasn't it her own fault that she came out of the vehicle?"
I said it would have been better if we had the technology available there, but still it was very much her fault to come out of the vehicle while security concerns were so much prevalent.
Then they asked, "While we ask you questions in Urdu, you reply in Urdu. People before you did otherwise i.e. When asked in Urdu they were replying that in English. Why is that?"
I said I am comfortable with Urdu as well as English and consider it a logical thing to answer in the same language. Also I added that some people unfortunately have started thinking that use of English is a show of intellect or wisdom, while I don't think so.
Then they asked about financial crises and its impact on our country.
I narrated the same story of sub-prime mortgages and all bla bla... But I said that our country's economic crisis is not only due to that international phenomenon, it's mainly due to our own indigenous weaknesses and mismanagement.

This way the interview ended in about 20~25 minutes.

It was a good experience.

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Long Live my Homeland

Very useful post indeed thank you Arif Bhai for your sincere efforts for guiding us towards right direction. I have the following queries:
1- What is the scheme of division of 300 marks in psychological tests.
2- How much marks are allocated for GROUP DISCUSSION and COMMAND TASKS.
3- What if one doesn't or is not able to speak about the topic given for group discussion but performs very well during other tasks and tests.
4- How come we come to know of devolution of power and tasks assigned to different govt. officers can you p;ease suggest some website for this purpose.
Thankyou for you endeavours.
Regards.

Ans 1 & 2. No marks are allocated to psychological exams. I quote my previous post in this very thread:
Ans 3. It goes against you but you can make up for the loss by performing well in other tasks.

Ans 4. That is a matter of general knowledge about govt working. Moreover, you can through Govt of Pakistan and Provincial govts websites.

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Long Live my Homeland

dear Arif
u r doing a great job.may Allah bless u.
i wanna ask u tht whether its better to join any academy for psy n viva or one can do it on opnes own.
regards

The choice is your own. I consider it a good option to go to an academy to do some group discussions and command tasks and have a couple of mock interviews for your practice.

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Long Live my Homeland