UPSC Answer Writing Masterclass by Manuj Jindal IAS

Class no. 3
Interpreting and understanding various indicative words in UPSC questions:

Various keywords that appear in questions of UPSC Mains are as follows:

DISCUSS

ENUMERATE

EVALUATE

ELABORATE with illustrations

EXAMINE

EXPLAIN

COMMENT

JUSTIFY with examples

ARGUE

CRITICALLY EXAMINE

DO YOU AGREE?

HIGHLIGHT – the critical challenges, the factors…

THROW LIGHT on the significance..

DEFINE

…and more…
Generally, UPSC uses these words in context of the question statement that has been made, or
the question that has been asked. So, if it is a simple information based question, then, it will
simply have “discuss” or may be a straight forward question in that form.

For example, the question below about Circum-Pacific Zone appeared in 2020 Mains exam GS 1
paper. It is a straight forward question asking the aspirant to write down the “geophysical
characteristics” of the Circum-Pacific Zone. There is no trick to the word “discuss” here. It
simple means you have to write various points about the geophysical characteristics and as
expected in most geography questions, draw a diagram if possible in that question

Similarly, look at Q. 6 from Mains 2020 GS 1 paper. It is a simple question about how melting of
Himalayan glaciers will impact water-resources in India.

Now, many students will try to write a solution for melting of glaciers rather than focusing on the
core of the question, which is about the impacts of the melting. The way forward or
recommendations in this question is not really needed. Focus on what the question is asking and
meet that requirement properly before you have time to add things that are not even asked in the
question. Therefore, I suggest, here you don’t really have to write schemes, recommendations
etc. at all.
Let’s look at another one which will help you understand this.

Here, many coaching institutes will tell you that “critically examine” means giving “pros and
cons” or “both sides of the issue asked in the question. I think in this question, that is alright. You
have to examine what role WHO is playing during Covid-19 (ranging from monitoring the
pandemic to providing vaccine expertise, information dissemination, coordinating international
efforts etc.) and also provide how it’s work and role leaves much to be desired from a body of
such size.

However, beyond that providing a way forward or recommendations to improve WHO’s role is
beyond the scope of this question. Many people will suggest that you do that, but that will be
unnecessarily taking much space from what you can write about the above points I discussed.
Hence, requiring a way forward, conclusion, recommendations etc. in every question is a very
simplistic and one-size-fits-all approach.

This question is simply asking WHO’s role in providing global health security during Covid-19.
Cover work done by it and also work that could have been done better by it. That’s it.

This is a harder question. This is from Paper 2 GS, Mains 2020. It has keywords “Highlight the
critical challenges”

That simply means lay down various challenges of ‘functionality’ faced by local institutions in
India.
Now, since this is a 15 mark question, if you have written all points of challenges as asked by
this question, you can certainly provide a few points on how to address those challenges. These
can be recommendations made by an existing commission or committee. But do not go much
beyond the main portion of the question.

In simple terms, all of them are asking the aspirant to answer one simple thing: EXPLAIN. All
these keywords effectively are asking for explanation of the particular topic/question asked.
There is nothing more complicated to them to be honest!

All these terms have slightly different meanings, however, in context of the UPSC questions
requiring answer of 150-250 words, there is not much you can do to create much of a
differentiation.

DISCUSS – means to write about the topics formally

ENUMERATE – means to list something…or give points on the topics

EVALUATE – means to provide a well-studied opinion based on facts

ELABORATE with illustrations – means to give more details on the topics

EXAMINE – means to write after studying carefully

EXPLAIN – means to clarify and tell reasons of the topic

COMMENT -- means to provide an opinion

JUSTIFY with examples -- means to give good reasoning with examples

ARGUE -- means to give reasons

CRITICALLY EXAMINE-- means to examine an issue analytically

DO YOU AGREE? -- means that you need to provide reasoning for taking whatever side of
the issue

HIGHLIGHT – the critical challenges, the factors…

THROW LIGHT on the significance..

DEFINE -- provide a definition or meaning

GS 3 paper 2020 -- some questions..