Chapter Three-How To Master Thematic Apperception Test
In this chapter you will learn how to create the structure & body of the story in the Thematic Apperception Test
Chapter 3. How To Create the Structure & Body Of the Story
In this third chapter, we will study how you should write the story in the Thematic Apperception Test. In order to learn the method you should use to write a story which will reveal the qualities which the image is trying to gauge, there are few important points we need to keep in mind.
1) The first thing is you need to understand is that every image in the Thematic Apperception Test has in inbuilt problem or purpose. You should be able to identify the problem or the purpose correctly and clearly. The good thing is that generally in all the images it is displayed in a very clear manner and is made very clear to the candidate. The only work left for the candidate is to put it on paper in the story nicely. Every image in the Thematic Apperception Test has an inbuilt problem or purpose. Generally, there is no image designed in which there is no inbuilt problem or purpose. What is the difference between a problem and a purpose?
For instance, you witness an accident. If you don’t do something about the victim, he may die or he may become permanently disabled. So that is a problem. Whereas on the other side, if you want to celebrate your mother’s birthday next week out of your love and care for your mother, then that is a purpose. If you don’t celebrate it, nobody will die, nobody will suffer, and nobody will be in pain but you want to celebrate it out of your love for your mother. Hence, that is a purpose.
So, the first point is that every image generally has a very clearly visible problem or purpose and the candidate should be able to identify it correctly. A person with average intelligence is easily able to do this. This does not require a candidate to be a genius.
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2) The second thing you need to understand is the importance of bringing the problem or purpose as quickly in the story as possible. Once you are clear about the problem or the purpose, you should try to write the story in such a way, start it in such a way, that the problem or the purpose becomes a part of your story in the very first sentence. What do I mean by that? To give you a simple example, let us say you are writing a story around celebrating mother’s birthday. You may start it as:
Raman, 20, wanted to celebrate his mother’s birthday.
So, this way you have directly introduced the purpose in the very first sentence. There are multiple benefits of writing the story in this manner. The first thing is that your perception comes across as natural and honest, so a very big key quality gets confirmed. Then the second thing is that it helps you in PPDT also and not just in the Thematic Apperception Test.
It helps you in PPDT also because in the PPDT story if the hint visible in the image becomes a part of your story in the very first sentence, then your perception is considered as natural and honest. As a result, your possibility of getting screened in becomes sky high. Although the nature of the images which come in PPDT are considerably different compared to the images which come in the Thematic Apperception Test, this rule will still be applicable.
With some images, it may not be possible for the candidate to introduce the problem or the purpose in the first sentence itself. In such cases the candidate should try to see if he can bring it in the second sentence. If not second, then can he bring it in the third sentence. This way he should try to bring it in the story at the earliest possible. There are images which simply do not allow the candidate to introduce the problem or purpose right at the beginning but then those are very rare and exceptional images. Most of the times, the candidate will be able to bring in the theme in the very first sentence very easily.
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So, the second point to be kept in mind when it comes to creating the structure and the body of the story is to identify the problem or purpose in the image and bring it in the story at the earliest possible.
3) The third point to be kept in mind is that the problem or the purpose that you are choosing as the theme of your story should be short term. What do I mean by short term? Short term means a problem or a purpose which can be solved or fulfilled in a few days or a few weeks, or at the most within few months and should not necessarily take years or decades.
In my experience there is just one image which is an exception to this but then it is just one image. All the images are generally such that the inherent inbuilt problem or purpose in the image is of a short-term nature in itself.
Planning and executing mother’s birthday party will not take more than a few days. Hence, it can be categorised as a short-term theme. Rushing an accident victim to hospital and informing his family will not take more than a few hours. Hence, it is a short-term theme. Compared to this, our PM Modi’s plan of reducing carbon emission is going to take decades. Hence, this is not a short-term theme.
There is a very important reason why the images are designed for a short-term theme: Army needs a person who can solve the immediate problems at hand and not a person who can plan for the next 50 years. The work of planning for the next 50 years is of the seniormost officers like the CDS, Chief, and DGs of various arms. At the level of Lieutenant to Colonel rank there is barely any scope to do any planning for the next 50 years for the organisation. A person working at the rank of Colonel or below is generally just expected to, and required to, take care of the
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unit’s day to day work properly. They simply do not have the authority to do anything at the organisational level with a plan for the next 50 years. This is the main reason why the assessors in the boards would like to see whether the candidate has what it takes to solve the immediate problems at hand efficiently and effectively. Hence, images are designed for short-term themes.
I am sure you have now understood that the third most important point to be kept in mind while creating the structure and the body of the story is that the theme should be short term.
One very important point candidates need to keep in mind is that the theme should not be unrealistically ambitious. For instance, themes like wanting to climb mount Everest, winning gold in Olympics, winning Nobel prize, inventing vaccine to cure AIDS or cancer, getting the country rid of poverty or any such theme which comes across as dreaming in broad daylight will only cause harm to the candidate’s psychological evaluation. The candidate will come across as someone who lives in a dream world and has unrealistic thinking. The candidate will come across as totally disconnected from the reality and extremely immature and impractical. These kinds of qualities are extremely undesirable in a candidate and will never help him in getting recommended.
4) After you have carefully ensured that the you have correctly identified the problem or the purpose, ensured its short term, and then introduced it right in the first sentence, you need to pay attention to the next thing and that is the steps which you will write in the story to solve that particular problem or fulfil that purpose.
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After you have nicely introduced the theme in the first sentence itself, you should immediately come down to steps. For example, if the theme of your story is celebration of mother’s birthday, then accordingly you need to think about the steps you are going to take to arrange and execute the function of your mother’s birthday party. Generally, in day-to-day life, the kind of things anyone does for celebration of any family member’s birthday are things like making a list of guests, meeting a caterer and deciding the menu, making the seating arrangement for guests, sending out invitations, selecting and buying a good cake, and decorating the house. These are some of the steps that you will take. Isn’t it?
These steps form the main central part of the story’s body and it is in these steps that the qualities of the candidate get reflected. Hence, a lot of attention needs to be paid to the steps. That brings us to the next important point which needs to be kept in mind when trying to gain mastery in the Thematic Apperception Test.
5) After you have introduced the theme in the first sentence or as early as possible, you should quickly come down to steps. The story should ideally have around four to six steps which should be realistic. The steps should be such that an ordinary man on the street should be able to take them. The steps should be such that you should not be required to become a superman or a Hollywood hero to do those things.
6) The next important point to be kept in mind when trying to gain mastery in the Thematic Apperception Test is that the sequence of steps should be correct. If the sequence of the steps is not correct then it will become clear to the assessor that under stress you falter. That is not good. The sequence of steps not being logically correct will show that the candidate is not
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able to maintain focus and composure under stress and his mind isn’t able to think correctly. This will go heavily against the candidate.
7) The seventh and last point is about conclusion. After you have carefully followed the 6 points listed above, then you should come down to the last part of the story and that is the conclusion. In the last 1-2 sentences you should conclude the story in a simple manner.
Just to add one point, if you develop this style of writing where you are bringing in the problem or the purpose in the very first sentence, then the benefit you get is that you also get more time and more room on the paper to write steps. Your qualities are going to get revealed by your steps. The assessor is mainly interested in your steps, so you should always focus more clearly on steps. Once you are done with this, then in the end, in the last one or two sentences you should conclude the story.
So ideally your story should be somewhere around 9 to 12 sentences which should be of around 100-120 words overall. Sentence means from one full stop to another full stop. First sentence should have the theme, then it should be followed by around five six steps and in the final one or two sentences you should conclude.
I am sure this chapter has helped you understand how to correctly go about creating a proper body and structure for the story.
In order to develop your skill in the Thematic Apperception Test, you should do lot of rough work before writing a story. Never to write a story directly if you are in the learning phase. When a candidate has just recently started his preparations for the psychology tests then he should invest a lot of time in doing homework for every story. In my offline batches in Nasik as
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well, candidates are encouraged to take even an hour if needed to do homework for 1 single story. Whenever you see an image, the first thing you should do is carefully analyse what is the problem or the purpose in the image. Then you should put an effort to try and form a sentence which will help you bring the theme in the first sentence itself. This skill may not develop overnight but with time and disciplined practise, it will develop for sure. After this, in rough, the candidate should carefully list down the steps which an ordinary person can take to effectively address that particular problem or fulfil that particular purpose. After that he should recheck to ensure that no step is coming across as unrealistic. After this he should carefully arrange the sequence of the steps in the correct order so that the steps bring about the desired outcome. After doing all this, once the candidate is completely sure that he has got the sequence of steps right, only then he should convert the story in fair and then conclude the story in the last 1-2 sentences. Generally, the conclusion part is not difficult for candidates. It is the introduction of the theme and the subsequent steps which prove to be a big hurdle.
Now that we have got an understanding about how should be the body and the structure of the story, we will move to studying images and story in the next section.
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