Psychological assessment of candidates 2007

This post will give you an idea of the Psychological assessment test administered by FPSC at Karachi regional office on Nov 20-23, 2007 from CSS 2007 written qualifiers. I hope it will serve its purpose and will provide you much required information about this important segment of the overall process of selection for Central Superior Services of Pakistan.

My group

We were five members, two doctors, two already civil servants and one a government servant in some post office.

Day one (1)

On day one my dress code was trousers, shirt and black shoes. No need to worry a lot about it since dressing the way you use to dress for your office will work.

First of all, we were given different tasks measuring our abilities and personality. As soon as we reached the center, we were asked to submit or original documents for scrutiny along with a set of attested photocopies. Latter, we were returned with those document same day.

Having signed the attendance and submitting documents, we were taken to a class room sort of place where a sheet was placed as per our seat numbers. The sheet was carrying our data that we submitted while filling up but this form was more detailed. We were asked to review the sheet, make alterations if any and add some more details. The details were like where I was brought up till 16th year of my life and after 16 years? My schooling, type of school, medium of instruction, fees structure and how fees were financed? The other questions were related to my family date of birth of mother and father, job, the property with the family, annual income, number of brothers and sisters, their ages and occupations. Some details about blood relations who are in public services were required.

Apart from this the other questions in sheet were about our interests, publications, trainings, research, hobbies and interests, co-curricular activities and affiliations.

After that another form was given to us and in that form they had asked us to register some details about ourselves. The main details were:

1. Good and bad habits of parents both mother and father and their effect on us.

2. Our strengths and weaknesses and how they effect us.

3. Two books that we have read in past five years and we would like to recommend to our friends.

4. Our two wishes that we want to see coming true.

5. Two favorite living and renown personalities.

6. Issues on which youngster use to disagree with parents

7. Strengths and weaknesses of FPSC

8. Major events of 2007 and their real significance

9. Any decision that I had made and was made to revise and how I dealt it.

10. Major disappointments and how you coup with them

And so on….

After getting this sheet filled, we were administered a test. This test was there to make an estimate of our I.Q. The time for this test was 40 minutes and questions were numerous. The questions were related to simple mathematics (series, percentage etc) making relationship among words etc. Here you are with sample question (wording may vary):

This is a series with two sets, what is in middle of the greater one:

(1)Cup, (2) Ocean, (3) Jug, (4) Strait, (5) Lake, (6) Sea, (7) Bucket, ( Cool

Bay, (9) Glass

So if we will see we will find to sets and bringing them in order will give this:

Cup, Glass, Jug, Bucket,

Lake, Bay, Strait, Sea, and Ocean.

The second set is having 5 items so it’s the greater and in middle of it we can see strait so option no (4) is correct answer.

The other questions were on the similar pattern. Regarding questions related to words, I was myself confused. They had given us two words in bold letters and options were given and we were asked to find the word that has a relation with those two (no instruction about the sort of relation, negative, positive etc). Since, I was confused with it myself; you are at your own! I was not able to complete it.

After that we were given a sheet carrying some 134 statement and you were to decide if they are true or false about you. Three options were given and we had to put cross on the option that suited us. We had to complete it in 30 minutes

Latter, we were given a test to gauge our problem solving skills. We were given six paragraphs and from each paragraph we were asked 4 question so total number of questions was 24 and time was 30 minutes. These problems were technical in nature and I am quoting an example for you:

In a company, when ever some one is promoted, he doesn’t use to get paid the salary according to new job till manager gets satisfied with the performance. After a satisfactory response by manger he is given the minimum of that salary scale provided he is not taking it already. If his new pay is less then or equal to the pay he was getting earlier, he ought to get the 10% increase in first week after 7th month.

Q1. Aslam is promoted to new scale; he was earning PKR10/hr and the minimum pay for the new scale is PKR 15/hr and maximum PKR 20/hr. What will be his pay after 7 months?

(A) 15, (B) 16, (C) 17, (D) 16.5

Answer is (D) how? The new pay is 15, and after 7 months he will have the increment of 10%. The ten percent of 15 is 1.5 and if we will add it to 15 we will find the answer 16.5

Such other questions were there.

Having completed this test, we were asked to take a sentence completion test with around 34 sentences that we were asked to do in 8 minutes. In order to get the full credit of the test we were asked to complete it fully. The sentences were like:

My father is …………..

I am sorry……………..

If you are offered bribe…………….

I regret that………………….

I hesitate to admit that……………..

Above test was followed another one with statements about us and we were asked to mark them true, false or “?” incase we don’t find the proper answer. It was carrying negative statements like:

Are you afraid of darkness?

Do you feel shy to open up with a stranger and things like that!

I completed it in 6 minutes and it offered me to minutes to ponder over some technical statements.

One of the tests was writing stories after seeing pictures. Each candidate was given 4 pictures and 5 minutes each to write the story. I got the following pictures:

Picture no. 1: A lady was talking to a young man. She was sitting on bad and boy was facing her sitting on the chair. There was an open window and an old man was passing by.

Picture no. 2: A boy is sitting with his chin on knee seems like thinking something. He is sitting on door of a room that is dark inside and the door is open

Picture no. 3: Two man are sitting face to face one with his elbows over table, seemed as if discussing something and a young boy is standing seems like paying attention to what they are doing

Picture no. 4: A bald man with mustaches like Hitler, with his cuffs up and another man whose face is obscured is standing behind him

Day two (2)

On day two three tasks were given. Two group discussions, one in Urdu and one in English.

In Urdu we were given a topic, “Mulk ki maeesheat (economy) ki tasweer haqiqat pa mabni nahi ha”.

In English the topic was, “Curbs on media are justified”

After that we were given command tasks. We were asked to study the task for 15 minutes and 8 minutes were for discussion and conclusion. The problems we were given are given as under:

1. I was an official on a committee of Ministry of Culture and sports. In order to renovate the museums we were to sale a sculpture. An Indian visiting Pakistan had offered a handsome amount but we refused it and decided for auction. In auction Mr. Y emerged the successful bidder and other three abstained. At latter stage it was declared that they were having secret arrangement to get hold of the master piece and the man behind all this was not Mr. Y. Now according to Auctions Act of 1927 no one can offer any thing gift/money etc to any one for abstaining from bidding. The bidders were saying that they pooled up the money and it’s not unlawful. Now I had to decide the strategy to do away with it.

2. Cyclone has hit Karachi and displaced the fishermen. We had to find the strategy to deal with disaster and mange the rescue and rehabilitation.

3. Land revenue and few people are evading taxes plus the real ownership of the cultivated land is different from original. Now how to deal this situation?

4. Cases of abduction of girls were reported in posh area of Karachi. Interior ministry has to take action. So what measures may be taken to deal with abductions and rehabilitation of girls after recovery.

These were the problems that we discussed.

Last but not least….interview with psychologist, here you go:

We were called one by one. They psychologists asked me to tell something about me. They asked about my research. They asked about my family. They asked about my schooling. This was very short. The major time that they took was a discussion about the current situation of country with special reference to events related to Benazir’s come back. Moreover, she was interested in knowing about my views regarding General Musharraf.

In last, I would say, I have tried to put all the points from my memory and understanding. There might be some difference in your opinion but at least this write up will offer you the basic idea. Feel free to put forward your queries.

I wish you good luck!!!