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Know Your EQ: Emotional Quotient Test

Developed by Dr DALIP SINGH & DR NK CHADHA

The present EQ test measures three psychological dimensions such as emotional sensitivity, emotional
maturity and emotional competency. This test has been standardized for professional managers,
businessmen, bureaucrats, artists, graduate student, and adolescent population. This EQ test has a test‐
retest and split‐half reliability of 0.94 and 0.89 respectively and validity of 0.89. It has been attempted
online by more than 25,000 persons worldwide.

How do you FEEL about yourself and people around you? This EQ test will help you to know more about
yourself and about people around you. This test measures the way you use your emotional skills in your
personal and professional life.
The 22 situations given below will measure your emotional responses to different situations.
Answer on the basis of how you FEEL and not what you THINK. There is no right or wrong answer.
Answer honestly and do not spend too much time. Usually your first response is the best response. Do
not leave any question unanswered.

Name: ‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐(don’t write here Kajal :D)

Age: ‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐
Gender: Male/ Female ‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐
Profession: ‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐
Educational Qualifications ‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐
Country: ‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐
Email:‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐
GO TO EQ TEST NOW:

1. You have been denied a promotion by the management for which you were eligible. Moreover,
one of your juniors has been promoted. You are emotionally upset and feel frustrated. What will
you do?
a. Talk it over with your boss and ask for reconsideration of the management’s decision.
b. Start abusing the colleague who superseded you.
c. Move to court and obtain a stay order to get justice.
d. Identify your shortcomings and try to improve your performance.
2. A freshly recruited professional graduate joins your organisation as a management trainee. After
a few weeks, she complains to you that she was not being taken seriously by her subordinates.
What will you suggest her?
a. Ask her to handle the situation herself and not bother you with trivial matters.
b. Tell her that such behaviour should be ignored.
c. Ask her to be bold, face the challenge and overcome the problem.
d. Empathize with her and help her figure out ways to get others to work with her.
3. At the workplace, due to some misunderstanding, your colleagues stop talking to you. You are
convinced that there was no fault of yours. How will you react?
a. Wait till they come and start talking to you again.
b. Take the initiative, go forward and start talking to them.
c. Let things take their own time to improve.
d. Ask someone to mediate.
4. You get into an argument with your colleague and end up attacking him/her personally. Later
you realize that you never intended to tarnish the image of your colleague. How will you handle
such ugly situation?
a. Sit calmly and consider what triggered off the arguments and was it possible to control your
anger at that point of time.
b. Avoid future arguments and leave the room.
c. Apologise to your colleague for your behaviour.
d. Continue with the argument till you reach some definite conclusion.
5. Imagine you are an insurance salesperson selling insurance policies. You approach a number of
prospective clients who slam the door on your face and refuse to buy policies. What will you do?
a. Blame yourself and stop work for the day.
b. Reassess your capabilities as an insurance salesperson.
c. Come out with fresh strategies to overcome similar situations in future.
d. Contact the clients again some other day.

6. When someone directly criticizes your behaviour, how will you behave?
a. Tend to close up and stop listening.
b. Carefully listen to their opinion.
c. Tend to get upset about it.
d. Think of ways to change your behaviour.
 7. You are on an aircraft and suddenly the air‐hostess announces that it has been hijacked by the
terrorists. Everyone is in a state of shock. What will be your reaction?
a. Blame yourself for choosing an inauspicious day for travelling.
b. Be in emotional control and attend to the instructions of the pilot/air hostess.
c. Continue to read your magazine and pay little attention to the incident.
d. Cry out and vow not to travel by air in future.
8. Imagine that you are a police officer posted in a sensitive area. You get information of violent
ethnic clashes between two religious communities in which people have been killed from both
sides and property damaged. What action will you take?
a. Decide not to visit the spot personally as there may be a danger to your life.
b. Relax; this is not the first time riots have taken place.
c. Try to handle the situation by taking action as per law.
d. Reach the spot and assuage the feelings of the victims.
9. Your grown up daughter starts arguing with you every now and then. She tells you that you
cannot impose your old‐fashioned attitudes and outdated values on her. How will you tackle
her?
a. Accept her statement in helplessness and take a low‐profile position in the family.
b. Send her to a psychologist to learn her adjust with her environment.
c. Manage your emotions and explain your point of view as patiently as possible.
d. Talk to her and understand her emotions, beliefs and attitudes.
10. After weeks of merger of two largest financial firms, hundreds of employees were
expected to lose their jobs. You, being the General Manager (HQ), were told to convey to the
employee the decision of the management. How will you convey the message?
a. Give a gloomy picture and tell them you have no option but to fire half of them.
b. Give a bright picture and tell them that the company will be blessed with talented people from
both firms.
c. Tell them that you will collect more information to be fair and update them every few days on
how things will take shape.
d. Announce the decision and let the employees take a decision about what they want.
11. You are a professor in a college. While delivering a lecture, a student comments that you have
not prepared the topic properly and you are just passing the time. This has hurt your self esteem.
What will be your reaction?
a. Report to the principal of the college about the unruly behavior of the student.
b. Order the student to leave the classroom at once.
c. Ask him/her to meet you in your chamber after the class to explain what he/she wants.
d. Judge the emotions of the class and promise to make amendments accordingly.
12. As CEO of a company, while taking a meeting with the union, one of the union leaders levels
serious allegations of corruption and favoritism against you. How will you react?
a. Continue with the discussion and listen to their demands with a cool head.
b. Ask union leader to make allegations in writing and offer an impartial enquiry.
c. Cancel further negotiation and ask the union leader to apologise first.
d. Leave the room after assigning the responsibility to your subordinate to continue with the
meeting.
13.You had an argument with your spouse on some trivial family matter and are not on speaking
terms for sometime. The situation is causing mental disturbance to both of you. What will you
do?
a. Stick to your stand; after all you were never at fault.
b. Try to break the ice by analysing the reasons for the conflict.
c. Make first move and ease the situation.
d. Wait for your spouse to make the first move to restore normalcy.
14. You hail from a rural area and take admission in a city college. You find your classmates taunting
you as you are not smart and are unable to speak good English. How will you manage yourself?
a. Ignore them.
b. Shout back and tell them to mind their own business.
c. Leave studies half way and go back to your village.
d. Accept their challenge and prove that you can match them.
15. While speaking to an audience, you feel that:
a. It is difficult to convey your speech.
b. You are partly comfortable in conveying your speech.
c. You are comfortable in conveying your speech.
d. You feel that you will do better with some more practice.

16. Your friend’s sister, who got married just one year back, is heading for a divorce. She is highly
educated and economically self dependent. She comes to you for guidance. What will you
advise her?

a. Tell her to go ahead with the divorce as she is a first class MBA and her husband can not take
her for granted
b. Empathize with her for marring an academically average person.
c. Advise her to talk to her husband and figure out the reasons behind the mal‐adjustment.
d. Tell her that academic qualifications are important but these do not help in leading a
successful married life.

17. There is blind girl in your class. She trips on her way out of the class. You see a few of your
friends making fun of her and laughing at her. What will you do?
a. Laugh along with your friends.
b. Ignore the incident as they are your friends.
c. Help the blind girl make her way out of the class room but say nothing to your friends.
d. Help the girl and then confront your friends for being so insensitive.

18. While having an argument with someone, if you lose, you:

a. Feel totally beaten.
b. Wait for the next opportunity to beat your opponents.
c. Winning and losing are part of the game.
d. Analyse the reasons for the loss.
19. You are working as HRD General Manager in a large multi‐national company that recruit dozens
of fresh MBAs, engineers and other professionals on senior positions every year. This requires
time, energy and money. However, you find that 75 percent of the young recruits are leaving
the company after around two years of work experience to join more attractive jobs. What will
you do?

a. Ignore the trend. There is rampant unemployment and you can find more people lined up to
join your company.
b. Try to find out the root cause of their leaving the job and take corrective measures to retain
them as you have already invested in them heavily.
c. Increase the pay package and lure them in working with you.
d. Change the selection criteria and recruit people on the basis of their need and requirements.

20. You have been involuntarily transferred to a remote project and posted under a new boss.
Although you have been given a pay hike and also a promise for promotion in near future yet, you are
not comfortable. Your family can not shift along with you due to education of your children. You are in
a sensitive area and your security is also at risk. You are undergoing a mild level of stress. How will
you diffuse the stress?

a. Enjoy. After all there has been a hike in your pay for working in a sensitive area.
b. Wait. It may turn out to be an opportunity for early promotion.
c. Lament. Why should such terrible things happen to you only?
d. Act in haste. Think to resign and find out a new job for you.

21. You have lived your life for so many years on this earth. How would you like to explain your life
at the moment in one sentence?

a. Successful: Well, I am a contended person who got whatever could make me feel happy.
b. OK: Well, it’s a mixed experience for me. It’s 50:50.
c. Comfortable: Well, destiny is in the hand of God. Man is just a puppet.
d. Uncomfortable: Well, I feel I deserved better but could not get it.

22. As an HRD manager you have to recruit a large number of employees for a multinational firm.
After the written test and interview you find that most of candidates who qualified are women. What
will be your reaction?

a. Hire women employees. They deserve it as they have qualified the selection criteria.
b. Well it’s a women’s world. Hire them any way.
c. Hire male and female employees in equal number.
d. Avoid women employees as they are a liability.