GR-1.5 Group discussion
You can enter a group discussion with a structure — open, add, disagree, summarise — hold a position without raising your voice, and be remembered for one clear contribution.
A group discussion is not a debate you win; it is a room where six people are being watched for whether they can think aloud, listen, and move a conversation. Most candidates lose it by speaking first and often. The two IIT courses below teach the structure and the body language; the practice is with other people and cannot be done alone.
Work through these
Watch the two group discussion lectures in the IIT Roorkee course and write down the roles it names
What a group discussion is for, from the side of the people assessing it, and the handful of roles a participant can usefully play. Knowing the roles is what lets you choose one on the day.
NPTEL: Soft Skills · CourseWatch lecture 42 of the IIT Kanpur course, on body language for group discussions
How posture, eye contact and where you look while others speak are read by the panel. Most of what a group discussion assesses is visible before you have said anything.
NPTEL: Developing Soft Skills and Personality · CoursePrepare three positions on each of five current topics — for, against, and a middle — one page in total per topic
The preparation that makes it possible to speak second rather than first. With three positions ready you can add to whatever the opener said instead of competing with it.
Run a fifteen-minute practice discussion with four classmates and record it on a phone
The part of this topic that cannot be done alone. A recording is the only honest witness to how much you spoke and how often you interrupted, and a phone on the table is enough.
Listen back and count: the times you spoke, the times you built on someone else, and the times you interrupted
Three numbers, and the middle one is the one that matters. Building on another speaker is what the panel remembers, and it is the move almost nobody makes in a first practice.
Repeat with a different topic, aiming to speak less and to be quoted more
The second run has one target: another participant refers to something you said. That happens when a contribution is short, clear and useful, which is the whole of the skill.
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