Repeater's ExperienceStories

Naval Entry, 33 SSB Bhopal – SSB Experience

Hey, I am Vamsi Krishna, and am here to share with you my 5 days SSB experience from SSC(IT)-Jan 01/22 Naval Entry, 33 SSB – Bhopal. I have applied for this entry months ago and surprisingly cleared the cutoff(Usually it will be very high for naval entries) got the call letter. They will give a cutoff based on the normalized percentage till the 5th semester and My percentage till the 5th semester is 64% (B.Tech / CSE). So, I got admit card mentioning the reporting date as 28th November 2021. As I am from Andhra Pradesh, it takes around 22hrs for us to reach Bhopal. So, I packed and checked all my things prior to departure and boarded the train on the 26th afternoon, and reached Bhopal by 27th, 8:00 AM. As I was to Bhopal before, I know the fare of the hotels is so high and that too the rooms will be in the worst condition.

So, this time I booked the IRCTC retiring room before leaving home itself and it is Rs. 570/- (Non AC – Single bedroom) for 24 hrs which is not bad for the stay. Another candidate came to my room and asked am I here for SSB and that’s how I got a buddy pair for my Stage 1. He was busy preparing and also suggesting me to practice the ppdt narration, story writing, etc. But, am not the kind of person who goes through all this at the last minute. OK, let’s go to the reporting day. We woke up at 4:15 AM and got ready with the proper formal outfit by 5:10 AM and took the auto and reached the centre by 5:30 AM.

Total 86 candidates were reported out of 300 invitations. Out of 86, 14 were repeaters, 30 were Screened Out and 42 were Freshers. Officers checked the Admit Card, Application form, Covid 19 RT-PCR/Fully vaccinated certificate, No-Risk, and Undertaking Cert. After that Van came and took the candidates inside to the testing centre which might be around 1.5 KM. After that, we gave the xerox copies of the above-mentioned documents along with the Educational Certificates (SSC, +2, Degree) Xerox copies. And we got the chest numbers, My chest number is 18. So, here I wanna mention that am twice been to SSB before and got screened out in both the attempts (SSC(Tech)-56/Bhopal & SSC(Tech)-57/Kapurthala). This is my 3rd attempt. After getting chest numbers, we were taken into the examination hall and briefed about the OIR initially. We got the DPIR-202 & DPIR – 203 which I can say is the toughest. I have done just 24 out of 45 in verbal (remaining I bubbled something in the last 2 min) and 45/45 in non-verbal. We got 30 min for each set. I expected that I may get 65/90 around. I don’t know that this was the toughest set as I am taking this set for 1st time. Then I forget about the performance in OIR as it might affect the most important PPDT test. So, am fresh-minded and ready for the PPDT. A psychologist came and briefed about the test and showed the picture where I can see 3 persons, one person might be boss sitting in the chair with a table in front of him, and 2 employees were talking to him and explaining something to him. So, I wrote a story based on the freelancing, development of App. I have just written 50% of my story and the time was up. I forget this written part as well and started preparing for the narration in that short time. They divided the candidates into subgroups consisting of 12 per group. So, we went into the room where narration and GD is being conducted. After being seated, the assessors asked to lower the face mask, where most of the candidates started pulling off their Face Shields…LOL. I removed the mask only and So, be attentive and listen carefully to what the assessors are telling. The narration was started and my turn came. I narrated fluently by looking at every candidate and as usual, am unable to complete my story fully. But, I narrated 90% of the story and was satisfied with that. After the narration was done, I have initiated the GD, many were started but dropped off and I didn’t. So, I started with the no. Of characters… I spoke 3,4 times. I noted the themes that I liked most while narration and mentioned those chest numbers and the themes as well and suggested choosing the theme from one of them. As most of them written on the same theme, related to corporate company, we decided the same. As like everyone’s GD, ours was also incomplete and he told that it’s done and can leave the hall. As It is a batch of 12 each, and there were 14 repeaters, 2 repeaters were there in our batch. Chest.No:14 is a little dominant, and even the assessor indirectly mentioned that let’s give chance to others who didn’t speak till now. I was silent and listening to others from then but he is still doing the same and u know the result :-). So, everything is done now. We had our lunch and waited eagerly for the results. The same repeater came and sat beside me and started telling me that, you will be definitely in this time. But, I didn’t care that as the same I listened from other candidates in my previous attempts. Finally, Officer came with the results and in a tray with the new chest numbers. I can see that, there were very few chest numbers. So, I understood that very few were screened in and started losing hope. He started announcing the chest numbers, 2, 24,32, 36, etc and passed over my chest number and lost hope and started feeling sad. Then He told 8 numbers and the last two numbers were left. And he told me it is 18, 64….. OMG, I was shocked literally and had tears in my eyes. Got the new chest number 9 and standing with the other screened-in candidates. Totally 10 were screened in, out of which only 1 repeater, 3 SO, 6 freshers. Surprisingly, based on the percentile, I got OIR 1 🙂 (Seen from the paper that the JCO kept while distributing PIQ’s). Immediately I opened my mobile and canceled the return ticket which I booked for the safe side :-).

After this, we got PIQ forms and all and asked to fill the same. We had time till 5:00 PM. We also had our phones till then. Called the parents and informed the result and of course, they will feel happy as everyone. After filling PIQ, we had the verification of the original document. I had a mismatch with my father’s surname in my SSC certificate and application form. So, I carried affidavit with me for the safe side. With the affidavit he accepted and for others who have such issues, he asked them to provide affidavit which we can get with the help of canteen staff. So, no one was documented out. They collected our phones and allocated the rooms, 5 per room which were maintained well. Also had the hot water facility for bathing, drinking water facility in the floors and it was good I can say. That’s day 1.

And Day – 2, is a psychology test. We woke up at 5:30, had breakfast by 6:15, and were ready for the psych by 6:30. A psychologist came by at 7:15 around and she briefed about the TAT. I have written all 11 stories with good actions. For the blank, I have prepared one story based on my NCC, I checked with Vipul sir and Priya mam, and as they said it is very good, I have written the same. Then, I have attempted 56 WAT, 34 SRT, And a good Self Description with the same structure suggested by the SSBPsych. 4 positives and one thing that I need to improve and work on it. So, with that, we concluded our psych by 10 AM around. Surprisingly, we came to know that all our interviews were scheduled on the same day with 2 different interviewing officers. So, my interview was scheduled for 1:00 PM. I had enough time to have a proper outfit with formals, a blazer, and a tie. I need to be in the waiting room by 12:40. So, I went on time and waited in the waiting room. There were some newspapers and magazines, and I am going through some magazines related to Mahatma Gandhi for the time being. The time came, rang the bell, went to the room, wished him, and asked for permission before entering the room. He welcomed me and asked me to be seated. I wanna tell u that, am good at interviews. I will give interviews as like I have nothing to lose and will think that the person sitting in front of me knows nothing. Trust me, it will work for everyone. So, we had some normal discussion about my name, place, and all. After that, I had CIQ from my studies to extracurricular activities and I managed this rapid-fire very well with the same sequence. Here comes the main thing, when I told about my arrears while answering one of the rapid-fire questions, I told I had 15 arrears history. But, he told me to look into my marks sheets which I had on my side. I started counting and it went till 22. But, to be frank I left some subjects as I have very low internals and registered other subjects instead of them as we have a choice based credit system in our college. But anyhow, he told that don’t worry about ur failures, …those are the things that we need to remember always…. I felt a little bad about that count as I was a little neglected with that. But, didn’t reflect anything in my face. Kept smiling and answering. He asked for the reason behind my arrears. I told, I have attended several NCC camps because of which I don’t have internals and got backlogs. He was not fully satisfied with my answer though. Still, I didn’t let the pressure climb my shoulders. I was super calm. He didn’t ask anything from PIQ apart from that which is very sad. He started asking technical questions from CSE, which am not good at. I have answered one out of Three. But, little disappointed with the technical questions. So, somehow it was done and I can rate my interview as Average. For me, I thought Interview is the thing where I am very good at. But this technical knowledge let it down. My interview went for 40 min. Anyways, forgot it and started thinking about GTO.

For GTO, started with the GD where I contributed well and am the person who took the initiative in GD 1 and gave chance for others to begin in GD 2. I gave points for 4,5 times in both the GD’s and it went well. After that GPE and the main disturbing factor I need to mention is, Temperature. It was 12,13°C which we people from the south are not habituated for. Literally, I and the other 2 persons from the south were shivering like hell. Back to the point, GTO explained the story well by showing the model and gave 5 min to go through the story and after that gave 10 min to write the solution. Hardly, I wrote a solution for 2 problems and Time is up. My hands were not at all moving because of the cold and the writing was very bad. And Discussion happened and same, I contribute with my points and most of the group agreed with it. But, no conclusion, and the discussion was stopped by GTO. Here comes the PGT, which am very eagerly waiting for by holding the weapon of a concept called Base and Hinge taught by the Vipul sir. So, PGT started and the repeater chest.no:1 started implementing and he took us through the start line and got stuck at the second obstacle. Here comes the student of SSBPsych, I was in the front and started giving ideas and I took the team across 6 obstacles with the only concept base and hinge and locking the moving obstacles. I was really satisfied with my PGT. And the repeater got scolded by the GTO which was very sad as he was wasting much time at the simple obstacles. And then, HGT, a team of 5 members, I started giving ideas, but there were just 3 obstacles, I cleared two, and for the 3rd obstacle, some other team members gave ideas and I implemented the same. After this, we had a snake race which is not a race in our case actually. As we are just 10, he is not interested in dividing into teams. So, we just have to compete with the time, that’s it. “Jai Hind” is our war cry and it was good. I was chanting the war cry when I was at the heights which shows the courage of a person. Then, lectureate. I have chosen the topic “Future Of Digital Currency” and gave the descent lecture for 3 min with proper structure. That’s the GTO-1.

Day 4, GTO – 2 Started with the individual obstacles, I have done the 10 obstacles perfectly in the given 3 min and no one has done more than 10 I guess. After that, we had Command Task. Out of 9(except me), 5 candidates called me as a subordinate. But, I just followed their commands and didn’t give any ideas. As I called many times, GTO gave me some tough ones, but I cleared them with ease. And then the FGT, it’s just for namesake and we just crossed the 2 obstacles and he told us it’s enough. So, that’s the GTO. Except for me and chest.no:2, everyone got scolded by GTO somehow. But, I had a gut feeling that I performed GTO very very well as compared to the Psych and Interview.

The Conference Day, everyone was confident that me and chest.no:2 are going to be recommended. They started planning parties and all. But hold on. One by one, the conference was just for a couple of mins and all done. Had lunch and came back to the waiting room. The officer came empty-handed. Gave some Gyaan for 5 min and told only one got recommended. He asked us to guess the number, and Everyone unanimously told us, it is chest.no:9, which is mine. I was tensed little. But he told it was chest.no: 8, came from nowhere. No one was satisfied with the recommendation as we know he is nowhere in GTO. That’s it. It took some time for me to get out of it. And has to accept all this as it is SSB and it’s just beginning. I know where it went wrong for me. Will work on it and will appear again. Got Screened Out from Bhopal first, Got Conference out from Bhopal first, Will get recommended from the Bhopal first from the NCC SPL entry (expecting to be at Bhopal) …. Just For the self-motivation buddies…\/

So, that’s it and keeping the result aside, it was really a great and fantastic 5 days to be there without phones, spending time with the candidates from different corners of the country, playing sports with them in the evening times…. can’t cover everything here. I will store all these memories in my heart & mind safely and will be back here again with my experience after getting recommended soon. Till then, Signing off…

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