During Service Selection Board interview 5 day process, defence aspirants have to go through many test assessing their psychological and physical acuity. WAT short for Word Association Test is one of the psychological tests conducted on the second day of the interview process.

What is Word Association Test in SSB

Word association means “stimulation of an associative pattern by a word”, Here Word Association Test can be termed as the spontaneous connection and production of other words in response to a given word for the psychiatric evaluation. Word Association Test can reveal a person’s subconscious mind state. It’s been noted by research that people ideas, feelings, experiences and information are connected within in the mind which bind together the behaviour of the person, a person conscious mind has the ability to mask his real behavioural traits. Word Association Test is one of the psychological techniques in which an individual’s behaviour is tested through his subconscious mind.

To simply put this test observe candidates imagination and evaluate his/her qualities of individual ideas. In this test candidate will be shown a word and he/she is required to form a meaningful sentence using that word. On seeing a word there might be different ideas in candidate’s mind related to that word but he/she must write the first spontaneous reaction in your answer sheet.

Defeat, death, disease, birth, win, etc. these words have different impact on a person’s mind, when you frame a sentence based on these words, you are expressing your inner feelings about those words.

Tips on Word Association Test

• Evaluation is one of the major tools of mind, in Word Association Test (WAT) sentence made by candidates also show his/her evaluation strength. So, a candidate must work on his evaluation skills on day-to-day happenings it will help him/her to get in in required gear.
• Information of routine day-to-day life happening varies from person to person. A candidate must see how information is best framed to be acceptable by lot of people.
• Be Logical and a keen observer these traits are easily apprehended by psychologists by the candidate’s performance in Word Association Test (WAT).

How to prepare for Word Association Test (WAT)

• Practice daily 40 – 50 words for Word Association Test (WAT)
• Keep in check your response time for every word and improve it by practicing.
• Analyse your answer, assess out your negative points from your answers.
• Practice positive word association for negative words, for example: War – on this word people make negative sentences like “War is a heinous act committed by few politicians but suffered by whole nation” instead try to make a positive sentence out of it like “Indian war of independence got tremendous support.” Think positive and write positive. Being positive is the main factor to reckon the interview.
• Do write short and crisp responses where required.
• Don’t write answers relating only to army or defence forces, avoid too much use of famous idioms or probes.
• Many of the stimulus words may appear to be emotionally neutral (pen, coin, building etc), try to make a meaning full positive sentence out for it.

Examples of Word Association Test (WAT)

1. Society: Our society consists of rich set of good customs.
2. Impossible: Proper planning can turn impossible into possible.
3. Fit: The army soldiers are trained well for their fitness.
4. Responsibility: Every citizen must fulfil his/her social, economic, religious and patriotic responsibility towards society.
5. Will: The positive will power can change bad destiny to good.
6. Mother: Mother teaches us about how to live a life the right way.
7. Respect: The people salute the national flag as a way of giving respect to the nation.
8. Challenge: challenges increase abilities.
9. Fear: winners bravely face his fear.
10. Weapon- weapon is used for protection.
11. Hijack- commandos are trained for handling hijack situation.
12. Worry- A fighter never worries about failures.
13. Sports: A part from studies one must involve in sports
14. Fortune: Fortune and hardwork makes one succeed
15. Posion: Snakes poison is used as medicine

Practice Paper for Word Association Test (WAT)

To download the complete set for 500 words to practice Word Association Test (WAT) click on the link given below.

Word Association Test sample