How to write a good Essay in KAS Exam
By: Syed Shahnawaz Bukhari
Essay paper in KAS (Main) Exam of carries 150 marks. This paper is very important as it is possible to score 120 or more marks in essay and thus, essay can act as a buffer to your performance in General Studies and Optional. Writing an essay is an art and if you are not naturally inclined to write that way, you will have to spend at least some time in practicing, more so because many of the issues asked in the form of essay are the ones that you generally prepare for your General Studies where you limit your preparation up to about 250 words.
Candidates very often complain that in spite of writing very good essay to the best of their ability, they got poor scores in range of 40-65/150. It clearly shows that they hold essay as a culprit for their poor overall scores. For the benefit of all, once again, I am hereby reproducing the title from KAS (Main) Exam Essay Question Paper, which reads as under:-
Examiner will pay special attention to:
1. Candidate’s grip of his material;
2. Its relevance to the chosen topic;
3. His ability to think constructively;
4. His ability to present his ideas precisely, logically and constructively.
These points are self explanatory and therefore require no discussion here. Now, before proceeding further, if I may put a question to readers “How many of aspirants have actually read this title with some understanding of what the examiner looks for in an essay in KAS examination”? And I can tell from my personal experience that very few would have an answer in affirmative.
There is no prescribed word limit for essay paper. Going by the 150 marks allotted to essay, it can be presumed that 2000 words should be the word limit. But I recommend and strongly so, that ideal word limit for a quality essay should be 1200 +/- 300 words i.e., 900-1500 words. Not less than 900, as you would not be able to cover many aspects of topic and not more than 1500, as it becomes more and more difficult to retain quality after 1500 words.. Optimum would be around 1200 words.
Now, coming to time-management, PSC gives 3 hours i. e., 180 minutes for essay paper. Going by the recommended word limit ( 1200 +/- 300 words), I recommend that you devote 90-100 minutes to develop the essay on 3-4 rough pages at the back of your answer booklet and roughly 80-90 minutes to actually write down a neat 900-1500 worded essay. And believe me, in 100 minutes, you can develop a very high quality essay on virtually any topic, provided you stop thinking in a narrow, constricted and skewed manner.
What are the steps in essay-writing in KAS examination?
1. Selecting the topic.
2. Enumerating various aspects of the topic.
3. Finding out supporting illustrations, examples, statements etc. for all these aspects.
4. Integrating various aspects organically and logically.
5. Winding up.
Now, let us deal with each of these steps in the backdrop of above statement “Examiner will pay special attention to …”
Step I: - Selecting the topic
I am not for a divide between general topics and philosophical topics. What I suggest is that:
Spend 5-7 minutes on each topic of which you have some knowledge in the process of developing steps II and III below.
Choose the topic for which you can think of maximum aspects and maximum supporting illustrations, facts, examples and statements etc.
This whole exercise should be completed in about 35 minutes. At the end of this exercise, you will naturally be left with only one topic to write essay on, whether it be a philosophical topic or technical topic or any other general topic.
Even in the worst case, you're supposed to write at least 900 words for a 150 marks essay. Don’t go for an essay in which you will have to go for padding. Padding means, you don't know the exact answer so you just beat around the bushes and write the garbage stuff to fill up the pages. While this tactic may work in the school and college exams but don't try it in this exam.
If you are not comfortable in politics, economy etc., I suggest you to pick up the essay on technical subject, example space-technology, advances in medical science, how IT has changed lives and so on. But then again you need enough 'content' to write 1200 words else again the padding route and digging your own grave.
Step II and III: - Enumerating various aspect of the topic along with supporting statements.
Once you decide your essay topic in 35 minutes, the steps II and III should be completed in 25 more minutes, bringing the total time consumed to 35 minutes ( for step I) + 20 minutes ( for steps II and III) = 60 minutes.
Now in these 25 minutes, write down as many aspect and supporting illustrations as you can. A good quality essay must have at least 5-8 aspects and 10-15 illustrations to support these aspects. First try to recall everything that you can remember / want to say about the essay. Take a pencil and write them all (in very brief) on the end of the answer sheet and see if there is any chance of adding some diagram or table in it. Do you remember any famous quotes, current events, people, historical events and laws / administrative polices related to that topic. Also, what are the positives, negative sides, obstacles and reforms you suggest? You may also view the topic chosen from political, economic, geographical, social, religious, environmental point of view.
Steps II and III are to be undertaken simultaneously and not separately, as aspect without supporting example does not impress the examiner and examples without relevant aspect do not actually make sense.
AND DO NOT PERFORM STEPS I, II and III ORALLY OR IN YOUR MIND ONLY, WHATEVER COMES TO YOUR MIND DURING STEPS I – III, WRITE DOWN AT THE BACK PAGES OF YOUR ANSWER BOOKLET AND SUPER SCRIBE THESE PAGES AS “ROUGH WORK” IN BOLD LETTERS. DO CROSS THESE PAGES ONCE YOU HAVE FINISHED WRITING YOUR ESSAY.
Examiner will definitely look at these pages to get an idea of how you have developed your essay and this will affect your total essay score also.
Step IV: - Integrating various aspects and supporting illustrations organically and logically
If qualitative 60 minutes have been spent by you up to step III, then this step IV should not consume more than 10-15 minutes of yours. Take care to write the essay in such a manner that all aspects and supporting illustrations of the topic flow out naturally and effortlessly, one after the other and not in a discord or broken manner. Up to step IV, you have thus consumed 75 minutes.
Step V: - Winding – Up
Winding-up requires 10 minutes of careful thinking and a 100-150 words write-up, which is a part of overall word limit of 900-1500 words and not separate. Whatever be the topic, winding-up must be on an optimistic note with certain novel suggestions from your side, if you can think of some. Thus in 85 minutes, your essay should be ready.
Actual writing of essay:-
Don’t jump start at writing essay now. Take a break, have a glass of water, take a walk to the toilet, see here and there, relax. Spend at least 5 minutes on this. That takes total time consumed to 90 minutes i.e., the half time. Review of what you have done so far.
After this 5 minutes break, start thinking again. See what you have written. You might recall another aspect of the topic or some other illustrations to support existing or newer aspects of the topic. Include that too in your draft. Read your draft essay once more. This review exercise should take at least 10 minutes, taking total time consumed to 100 minutes.
Now you start writing essay in neat handwriting and for this, you have 80 minutes, which are fairly sufficient to write 1500 words. While actually writing, you can add more aspects or illustrations, if you recall, but do not disturb the draft much. You should usually not require a supplementary answer book, and I believe it is not allowed either now.
This finishes the crux of our discussion here. Before I wind-up, here are some “do not's” in essay:-
DO NOTs :
1] Do not Write in essay that autocracy is better than democracy. (Know that it's the democracy that's allowing you to criticize it) so you should never justify certain solution to India's problems on those lines.
Excessively criticism of Government/ Administration (no over obsession by Greater Kashmir/The Hindu's stand) or condemnation of Constitution, Court decisions, unless you have an authentic source for this to draw from. If criticizing Government in the essay alone was going to make you an officer, then every journalist of Aaj Tak would be an IAS officer. I'm not saying you should transform into a sterile person writing the essay with out having any personal view/ opinion or righteous anger but, you mustn't become too much passionate about certain things.
2] Do not Give regional / religious / communal fervor to your essay. The examiner should not be able to judge after reading your essay that which part of India you come from and which religion / community you belong to. Never write like Congress did this and BJP did that. It's the trait of a common man not of a future officer. An officer's trait is to remain 'anonymous', 'faceless' and neutral - meaning your essay should look like it has been written by a graduate. I'm saying all this because you can never be sure about what will be the political / ideological / religious / regional alignment of the examiner.
3] Dont Name individual politicians - their achievement/scandals (Kalmadi, Raja, Amar Singh etc.)
4] Dont Suggest filmy solutions to real life problems. (Munna Bhai MBBS / Slum Dog Millionaire.)
5] Dont See negative sides without suggesting reforms in it.
6] Dont Exceed word limit of 1500 words, as far as possible.
7] Dont Fill your essay with technical facts, jargon and technical knowledge.
8] Dont End essay on pessimistic note.
9 }Provocative Essays:
Sometimes the essay topics are given in such a way, that you want to agree all the way. e. g.:
Panchayati Raj/MNREGA is wastage of tax payer's money. (may at times seems so, but when you're writing an Essay you need to maintain some balance)
Poor people are their own enemies.
India should move towards presidential form of government.
In such cases just because he gave you a statement doesn't mean you've to sing in his tone throughout the paper. DO NOT forget to show the other side of the mirror. It is easier to criticize non working things than to fix it. Remember this all time during essay, otherwise it will be you and your ruined essay.
Some themes on which the Essays are expected in coming exams:
1. Role of civil society in combating Corruption, Lokpal
2. FDI: Bane or boon
3. Right to Public Services/Inforamtion/Education/Food etc
4. Ecology and environment vs sustained economic development
5. Reservation, politics and empowerment.
6. Women empowerment: challenges and prospects.
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Tips for Essays and Personality Test
Tmt V.R. Subbulaxmi is the 147th Rank holder in UPSC Civil Services Exam 2009 and not able to join IAS in Assam cadre due to personal reasons. She also came out with flying colours in TNPSC Group I Exams 2009 securing 2nd Rank in Tamil Nadu. Now, she is the Deputy Collector under training in Villupuram District, Tamil Nadu. She shares her experience and gives excellent tips for the preparation of Essays and facing Personality Test in UPSC Civil Services Exam.