My UPSC Mains Essay Marks - 157
I think there is NO one fix
strategy for writing an ESSAY . It all about IMAGINATIVE POWER ...writing
RELEVANT STUFF according to the TOPIC.
In my last Mains of CSE 2015 I had received 110 in ESSAY ...and
this year 157 ...Some things which I implemented this time.
- Thinking properly over the TOPICs
to choose among those given.
- Once the topic are selected ...thinking for 1 hour over the content
in both the essays to write and writing down points on rough space given.
The next two hours used for writing those.
- I used to SIMULTANEOUSLY think on
both the TOPIC selected ...because at one point you might go blank over
one topic so in the MEAN time you could think over the other TOPIC and
come back again.
- While selecting topic care must be
taken that both topics be selected such that your content does not overlap...because if that happens then you
are committing a disaster.
- Thinking properly creating a chain
of ideas, relevant examples, etc. is essentially ...since last year, the
one essay I wrote, I missed the FOCUS in the middle way and moved away
from the topic which made me suffer.
The START !!
This is the most critical
part of ESSAY, hence the start must be awesome. It must be such that it makes
the Examiner to swim into your ESSAY, s/he must feel to read more and more
about the essay!
Here is where your
creativity is important, you need to create a SCENARIO relevant to the TOPIC!
Like I wrote this essay!
1. If development is not engendered, it is endangered
So it is clear that this
essay was on WOMEN!
So I created a scenario
where I portrayed a 3G call advertisement which you must have seen on TV at some point of time !
It goes like " There was a commercial on TV, where we had a woman who was a
BOSS and her husband was a subordinate working under her ! It happens so that
she gives her husband work to do and He has to stay back even after office
hours working late night. His wife, i.e. his BOSS goes home after office is
over and she cooks food and while cooking she makes him a 3G call asking like
'I am making food and kab aa rahe ho ghar? ' Leave aside the 3G part of the
story but, here what we see is a INDIAN women in a dual role as a successful
woman who is a LEADER at her workplace, at the same time she is one who is
fulfilling her role as HOUSE MANAGER "
and this is how I began my
essay creating a scenario and argued that 'but these (the above) are just a few
examples in INDIA but, in real BHARAT still the women has not come out of those
four walls ! 'and then the rest part of the essay !
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3. Near jobless growth in India: An anomaly or an outcome of
economic reforms
This was my second essay,
this was ESSAY which was basically asked as that year 2016 we had completed 25
years of LPG. So I had actually prepared something related to this essay as I
had that intuition of it coming.
So even here,, I started
with a scenario ...
So I went down 25 years down the line into the Parliament where
our than Hon'ble Finance Minister ManMohan Singh started his speech with a
quote of Victor Hugo which say's 'Nobody can stop an idea whose time has come !
' and that his how he advocated for LPG reforms in the budget speech.
I took this start of the
quote and argued in the entire essay regarding the positives and negatives
which India suffered due to LPG and critically analysing that had the ' TIME'
really come.
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So basically what I want to
say is that create a scenario,,,it can be anything ,.,,.. it can be a newshour
debate,,,it can be two friends talking ..it can be a event ...it can normal day
to day life scene you are putting forward.
Like in 2015 I wrote an
essay on
2. Quick but steady
wins the race
Here I started like , It has been days of winter
and I along with my friends have started playing Badminton and I'm learning the
game and I have understood that the game is all about of QUICKNESS but coupled
with that an element of steadiness is also required ! Quickness is
required since you need to defeat the opponent by landing the shuttlecock in
such a way that it falls in the opposite court in no man’s land. But here is
'STEADINESS' too is required since if the shuttlecock in that quickness and
speed goes out of the court you will lose the point.
and this is how I
started it telling that this is just the game ..but the same principle applies
to every other thing happening around us be it history , life , etc.
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So the 'start' is all
about IMAGINATION power ,
creativity . Just keep a watch on how editorials are written , how
anchors present some event. You will get 'n' no. of ideas to start your essay .
It can start it with some Shayari , or Poem or anything else ..only thing is it
must be relevant to the TOPIC ! But, it must not be a plain start which bores
down the already bored examiner !
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The BODY !
This is the place where you
actually have the content. So there are can be different ways of dealing with
it. It depends on the topic.
One approach can be like you deal with
topic from angles like in the WOMEN essay I wrote I dealt with aspects like
SOCIAL , ECONOMIC , POLITICAL , RURAL, URBAN , SECURITY ,etc. aspects of women
and argued in each area the strengths and weaknesses and how EMPOWERMENT can be
done and various solutions !
Other approach can be like ...giving two
sides of the story like the essay related to JOBLESS GROWTH ... I had argued
first he positives of LPG ...like telecom revolution, transportation, TV
industry , services sector boost and many other things. At the same time, the
other side of the story, as LPG reforms have been largely JOBLESS , farmers
still suicide and many other aspects
There can also be other
approaches as suggested from other toppers !
Do not write the essay in
Points …if you want to say three things ..you could say like “ One, ……. Two,…… Three,….”
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The END !
Yet another critical part
of the essay. I personally believe that end must have SOLUTIONS ....it must end
on a OPTIMISTIC
note. It must reflect that you are the one who have ideas and a way
forward and hence a candidate who must be recommended !
Like for the JOBLESS Growth essay, I said that MAKE IN INDIA , DIGITAL INDIA , SKILL INDIA all
these are good initiatives , but they have some shortcomings one , two , three
,..... and they can be rectified by one, two , three ( solutions). The only
thing it must be implemented in letter and spirit ! We have a strong leadership
where there are no coalition compulsions and so on. Hence I ended on optimistic
note that 'Yes, the time has come as said by Victor Hugo only if above suggestions are implemented !'
Or in the WOMEN essay I had put forward idea of
handicapped INDIA walking on a single leg very much like what happens in the
game of langdi (hopscoth). I correlated this with India hopping on SINGLE leg
that is of the MEN but if we have to move far ahead we will have to use the
other leg that is of WOMEN to walk on path towards the superpower tag or be
called for ever a THIRD world country and for that DEVELOPMENT will have to be
engendered or else it will endangered !
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How to bring in VALUE ADDITION in the essay ?
This is the important part
of the essay, this is where you can get an EDGE over others !
One, 'quotes' . Great personalities like Mahatma
Gandhi , Dr, APJ Abdul Kalam , Swami Vivekanand etc are an INSITUTION
in themselves. They have said many things on almost every aspect of life.
Making a dairy of quotes of say some 50 quotes can help in a great way. The
quotes need to be used smartly in our different parts of the essay.
like in JOBLESS Growth
essay I had a point where I accepted that entire world is facing recession and
INDIA too is no exception but we will act SMARTLY. How smartly , just like the
EAGLE which Dr APJ Abdul Kalam had said about in the quote
'All Birds find shelter
during a rain.But Eagle avoids rain by flying above the
Clouds'
All other countries are the BIRDS
but India will have to be that EAGLE to move forward !
Two, 'facts' are very essentially when we are making some point in the
ESSAY. Like in Women essay I quoted Mckinsley
report on Gender Power Parity, ‘Achieving gender equality
in India would have a larger economic impact there than in any other region in
the world—$700 billion of added GDP in 2025—but comprehensive change is needed.’
But, for this we need not take
extra efforts...since as I had said in previous post on writing effective
answers , you need to have handy facts on various aspects, that can be effectively
used !
Three, 'case studies' having success models, like in WOMEN essay I had quoted the idea of SHE group of
IPS Mahesh Bhagwat Sir for providing security to women and hence empowering
them. So likewise you will be required for maintaining a dairy of UNIQUE facts
and successful models which will also help in you in essay as well as answers
in GS MAINS.
Four, I had prepared a set of
atleast 10 Sanskrit shloks and
shayaris which I could use in the essay at
some point of time. This is not a big deal to do if we want good marks in essay
!
Like in women essay I had used the
Sanskrit shlok 'yatra naryastu pujyante ramante tatra
devata ' which means that 'Where WOMEN are respected, GODS make their HOME' .
So shloks like --
VASUDHAIVA KUTUMBAKAM: The whole world is one
family
Om
Saha Naav-Avatu |
Saha Nau Bhunaktu |
Saha Nau Bhunaktu |
could be prepared and can be
effectively used.
Five, keep a track of speeches of PM , President , Vice
President , RBI Governor , etc. you will get many beautiful
ideas and sentences from their speeches. Mnemonics used by our Prime Minister
are also nice like I used ......Hon'ble PM at Madison Square said that India is
blessed with three D's Democracy,
Demand and Demographic Dividend !
Six,
draw diagrams or flowchart wherever relevant ...like I showed the transition of Indian
economy pre LPG , LPG , post LPG through a flowchart ! In case of the essay of
Water disputes, River cauvery course can be shown through a rough map showing
the dispute
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PREDICTING THE ESSAY !
Many times Essay topics
have relevance with the current happenings around us ! Like this year
- Jobless
Growth - 25 years of LPG was very easy to predict as many articles had
surfaced in newspaper during that time.
- Digital economy: A leveller or a source of economic
inequality was
also predictable ...
- Water
disputes between states in federal India was also predictable since the
Cauvery issue.
Bottomline, is that even if
you predict some 10 topics and prepare them well
you can create MIRACLES in essay paper which is deciding factor of whether you
are IN or OUT. That content will also help in GS Mains.
Every topic asked in Essay
has some relevance to current happenings and hence that must come and reflected
in your essay !
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So this are some points
which I implemented which took me from 110 in CSE 2015 to 157 in CSE 2016.
I would again like to tell that different people have different
strategies while dealing with Essay. You need to create your ONE ,,,,bring in
INNOVATION ,,,, create an interest for examiner to read your ESSAY and let him
enjoy it and at the END of the ESSAY s/he must say ' Wah, kya likha hai !! '
:)
