English Paper for GPSC Mains

TOPIC: ESSAY WRITING IN ENGLISH PAPER

PRESENTER: GPSC GUIDANCE

HJ
What is Essay?
 Essay is writing almost everything about almost anything.- Aldous
Huxley.
 A typical essay has an introduction, body and conclusion.
 An Essay should have clarity of ideas about the asked topic.
 Essay should have coherence of ideas. One paragraph should
smoothly flow to another.
 Essay should have multiple viewpoints.
 In English paper, when Essay has to be written before 250 to 300
words, each word carries importance and redundant words should
not be used.
Introduction:
 Introduction can be started with quotation or anecdote or a question.
 Quotation: “Nature of punishment should be curative and
reformative, not punitive.” – Mahatma Gandhi.
 Anecdote: While visiting China, noted economist Milton Friedman
was shocked to see workers using shovels instead of modern tractors
at a canal building site. The person he was with explained that: “This
is a jobs program”. To this Milton replied: “I thought you were trying
to build a canal. If it is jobs you want, you should give them spoons
instead of shovels.”
 Question: If there is no earth left, where will development take
place?
Body:
Following points can be used to generate ideas:
 Temporal Analysis: Comparing with different times.
 Spatial Analysis: Comparing with different places/ country
 PESTEL Analysis: Political, Economical, Social, Technological,
Environmental, Legal.
 There should be more solutions than drawbacks in the body.
 Examples of leaders: IAS Armstrong Pame also called Miracle man
built 100 km road famously called “Peoples road” (Connecting
Manipur to Nagaland and Assam) after Government rejected his
proposal and he used social media to raise money.
 Conclusion:
 There should be a pre-conclusion paragraph which summarizes
key points of the essay.
 The Conclusion should be futuristic and positive. If the essay asks
any question, conclusion should have the answer to it.
 Conclusion can also be in form of quotation or question. Eg. “It is
not the Gandhian ideals that have failed us but the world has
failed to understand them.”- Aung San Su Kyi.
How to practice:
 Every week, write 1 Essay.
 Identify 30 probable topics like Education, Farmers, Science,
Constitutionality and write essays on it.
 Get your essay evaluated from multiple persons and gain their
perspectives.
 Make a book of your 30 essays to revise these essays at least 3
times before exam.
 GPSC Guidance will also conduct crash course lecture of 2 Hours
to complete entire English syllabus a week before exam.