Hi guys, my name is Apoorva Pandey and I secured rank 39 in UPSC Civil Services Examination 2017. I am going to share my essay strategy with you. I got 175 marks in essay this year. I hope this helps you. Essay is the first paper in Names.
Essay becomes important because it can be very scoring with very little effort put in. you can score very well. For me, essay is something that you can't learn in a single day and it requires practice.
But then again, your essay strategy depends on how confident you feel about it. Some people are confident in their writing skills and essay, they don't need a full-fledged strategy. So for those people, I would advise to move on. But for those who are struggling with their essay, with essay, some people need to, those who want to improve an essay need to improve an essay. I hope that this video is helpful.
So, my essay, whenever I wrote my final essay in exam, I practiced around 4 or 5 essays. I joined an essay test series and there are few things that I learned during preparing for my essay paper. There was no definite strategy for my essay. I will share the things that I learned during the test.
The first thing is that having a basic framework, a structure to your essay. When I used to write my essay, I used to prepare a framework in the first half hour of the essay. How the introduction will be, what will be the points, what will be in the body, with which dimensions will I deal with the body, what examples will I put in it, and finally what will be the conclusion.
So, you can also try to make a framework beforehand. It will be beneficial to make a framework. essay has a flow and you don't jump from one dimension to another.
This flow is very important in an essay because this is not a 250 word answer and you do not have to write it that way. It should have a flow and regularity. It can come when you decide your framework.
In exam, examiner will check a lot of essays in one day. So you have to make sure that your essay is stands out and for that you have to ensure that your essay captures the imagination of the examiner at the very outset. So for this you have to keep the beginning of your essay very interesting.
So for me I started my first essay with a poem. I had written my first essay on non-aligned movement so I had prepared a small poem on spot. I talked about the importance of standing for truth and standing for what you believe in. So, I linked it with the non-aligned movement saying that non-aligned movement is India's way of standing for truth, India's way of standing for its principles and its values. So, you can also make your opening a little interesting and then link it with your topics.
Similarly, my second essay on women that I wrote on women that the concept of new age women in India is a myth. So, is I started with a story. I talked about a woman who is apparently an empowered woman who has got good education facilities, she has had good work opportunities, she has had the choice to marry the person she likes and she has relatively enjoyed the kind of freedom we imagine for empowered women. But then to demolish this myth I highlighted how she faces harassment and I talked about it.
sexual harassment at her workplace, how she had to switch jobs because of it and how despite being a working woman and working the same hours as her husband, she has to take care of whatever happens in her household. She has to ensure that the children get their food on time. She has to ensure that the children are dropped to school. I have highlighted this in this way that even working women these days who are financially independent who make their own decisions, even they are somehow restricted by gender groups. new the idea of new women is a myth so this is how I started my book but here again I would like to say you all must have got the idea that my essay the women's essay was very opinionated I had very strong opinions about about this idea of a new age Indian woman so I wrote a lot of strong opinions on this but here what is Important is that you should not only write your opinions but also substantiate them with examples, explain them with examples, data, facts.
I wrote about how Nirbhla Sita Raman was the defense minister of India and how because of her we can assume that new age women in India has finally come to fore. But then again I got... contrasted it with the fact that the number of Indian parliamentarians, Indian women parliamentarians has never crossed the 12% mark. So, with this contrast, I tried to prove that maybe there is still a lot to be done before we can truly believe that the age of new women in India has arrived. So, with this, you can also put some facts and statistics.
So I think that my 175 marks has a strong role behind it. Strong opinions and I wrote the second essay very passionately. So I really think that what helped me score good marks in my essay.
Because I used to score good marks in mocks too. But the final 175 marks were way beyond my expectations. So I guess something really struck with the examiner.
And I really think that writing my opinions passionately. is what helped me get these marks. Then the second thing is I think there are some small things which we often ignore.
So, in this, you should write small paragraphs. You should not be too monotonous. If you keep writing big paragraphs, it does not leave a good impression.
Apart from that, use data, anecdotes, facts. In Civil Services exam, in every paper, use as many examples, anecdotes, data, facts as you can. It shows how well read you are, the extent of your knowledge.
It is important to show your knowledge to the examiner and this is how you do that. Apart from that, avoid grammatical errors in essay. If you think that your grammar is not good enough, then please practice the essay as much as you can. Avoid grammatical errors. You don't have to write very complicated English.
You don't have to use very complex vocabulary. It shouldn't seem like the words will be forced. The essay is not complicated.
should have a natural flow to it and that happens when you write naturally as much as your vocabulary is if you write from your heart then only you will like the essay apart from this you can use language a little creatively use similes, use metaphors, use personification, use alliteration so if you will do this a little creative use of language then that might help you score better I think that that is completely my personal opinion I would like you to refer to the strategies of other people as well before you go about doing this uh So, yes, these things helped me. But then again, the conclusion, I think, should be positive. For instance, the essay that I wrote on women, I highlighted a lot of issues in that essay, which I thought were issues that we are yet to overcome.
So, I started to fear that my essay might have become too negative. And it's true that nothing is completely black and white. Everything is white.
So you need to bring some positivity towards the end because you are aspiring to be a bureaucrat, a civil servant and you wish to change the way things are. So you have to have some sort of positivity in your outlook. So in this you can do this, I have highlighted this from the second last paragraph that how things have changed over the years, how things were two centuries back and how much it has changed all this while. And apart from this I have highlighted many examples. examples ke sath that new age woman is indeed rising, she is not there yet but she is definitely going to be there in a little while and then I try to end it on a very positive note.
Similarly GS ke answers me bhi main yeh koshish karti ki ki jo way forward mein aapne questions answers ke baad mein way forward likhti thi. Main koi idea ya koi example aapne nahin dekha hai to usko dalde. Lekin ek way forward dalte hai to that also leaves a good impression that you are ending on a positive note. I think.
It is really important that what you write, you write straight from the heart. I think passionately writing, it reflects something in your essay. But the key to essay once again is practice.
If you think that you write well and you just go there and straight away write in the exam, I think that is not a very good idea. You should at least write at least one or two essays, even if you are really good, then you should write one or two essays from the beginning and you should obtain feedback on that. Because as I said before, feedback... Many things are highlighted by feedback that you often ignore. You must be writing very well, your content must be very good, but sometimes you are writing very long paragraphs, so it's getting hot.
Or you are not giving many examples, so you are not getting any interest in the essay. You are lacking behind some way or the other. So try to bring some feedback for this.
And I hope that this video helps you. And all the best for all your future endeavors. Do well.
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