CSS Essay: expected examination topics

 Here are some factual observations based on the last 25 years of the CSS Essay exam topics. 

1. Gender-related themes feature consistently across the years. If not every year, every other year there is some topic related to the status, social well-being or the empowerment of the better half of humanity.

2. Topical issues (i.e. challenges or concerns that have recently been significant) tend to crop up among the essay topics. No surprise that over the first decade of the current century, 'terrorism' was a favourite prompt (five times).

3. 'Environment' and the crisis of natural resources are evergreen themes for the CSS essay.

4. Reflective topics based on popular aphorisms and psychological or philosophical truisms are a perennial obsession of CSS paper-setters. 

5. 'Pakistan' (again, no surprise) by name or without being named is another obvious focal interest. In particular, recently pressing issues often find their way in. [Example: Administrative devolution took place in Pakistan around the turn of the century →'Devolution of Power' (2001)]. 

Three elements of an effective introduction

The introduction to the essay must perform three functions. It can be said to be effective or ineffective to the degree that it carries these out. 

First and foremost, the introduction must captivate the reader. If the reader doesn't feel like sitting up during the opening of the essay, slogging through the rest of the essay will be pure drudgery for them–and worse, it will be at your expense. Use one of the tried and tested techniques to capture the attention of the audience. Start your essay with a rhetorical question, a story, a quotation or a striking fact relevant to the forthcoming thesis, or at the very least, related to the  topic. 

But simply using one of these techniques at the outset does not guarantee an effective opening. The attention-grabber must transition steadily to the thesis. The bridge between the catchy opening and the central claim must be short as well as strong. Right after employing one of these techniques, use a phrase or a sentence pointing straight in the direction of the thesis. Don't explain the attention-getter. Don't comment on it.

The third element of an effective introduction is the essay preview. Next to the thesis itself, the reader would feel very pleased to see a snapshot of the unfolding essay. It can be done by expanding on the thesis in a few sentences or better, by laying out the skeleton of the essay. 

To recap, the attention-grabber should give a heads up to the thesis it wants to spotlight before the introduction is tucked in neatly with the help of an outline of the main points.  

  

The four tools of précis writing

First things first: What is the goal in précis writing? 

The goal is to extract the thesis and the main points, out of the complex structure of an argument.   

The science of the précis boils down to a clever deployment of four tools. 

The first tool or strategy is as obvious as the difference between short and long. A given passage is roughly three to four times the length of the expected précis. The only way you can hammer a précis out of the passage is by massively excising the latter. I call this strategy—hold your breath—deletion. But you have to apply deletion mindfully, taking care not to chop out a main point. 

That brings us to the other three strategies. Generalization is to induce the general theme or idea from specific instances. e.g. 'Farid is a student who is hardworking. He is also very bright.' These statements could be generalized to a single proposition such as the following: Farid is a good student. 

Similar to but separate from generalization is the move I call synthesis. This is where you combine multiple ideas, even as you keep up some of the original phrasing. Playing with the same example, the synthesis of the two sentences would be: Farid is a bright and hardworking student. Note that unlike generalization, synthesis retains the actual wording but fuses the two separate sentences into a single syntactic whole.

Finally, paraphrasing : this is the simple act of rewording a statement with the help of synonymous phrases and grammatical reconstruction. As a student, Farid is at once smart and diligent. 

Weed out the need-less

If you enjoy chips or biscuits, I bet you like them crispy. The same is true for sentences. If you tend to use words or phrases that fill the sentence but do not advance the idea much, the reader will feel like chewing soggy fries or cookies. Here’s the advice for you. Expunge, edit out, eliminate and scratch all such unnecessary verbal expressions.

Which sentence do you like better: the last sentence or the following one? 

Omit unnecessary words.

One of the best books on style is by the linguist Steven Pinker: The Sense of Style: the Thinking Person’s Guide to Writing in the 21st Century. He calls redundant phrases “morbidly obese” and offers the following as examples alongside the “healthy” alternatives in the right-hand column.

To recap, “redundancy”, the technical term for needless words, produces verbiage or bloated prose. One of the best ways to rid yourself of stylistic flaws (such as redundancy) is to expose yourself to models of excellent prose. Anyone whose primary feed is The Economist or The Atlantic is less likely to write bad prose than someone whose meat of choice is The News or DAWN.          

10 tips on vocabulary building

1. Target learning just 5 new words a day. For each word, note its English meaning, as well as its Urdu meaning, its pronunciation, 2-3 synonyms and craft at least one sentence illustrating its meaning. 

2. Instead of cramming random vocabulary lists (GRE/TOEFL/SAT/GMAT etc), pick your words from the newspaper and from books and blogs related to your topics of exam preparation. 

3. Maintain a dedicated vocabulary register for noting down new words as described in (1). Don't work on your vocabulary on loose sheets of paper or in notebooks shared with other subjects. 

4. In addition to the vocabulary register, also maintain a pocket notebook for vocabulary building. From time to time, copy words and their meanings from the register to the pocket notebook.

5. Play the game of Scrabble a couple of times each month. 

6. In addition to discrete words, look for idioms, phrasal verbs and any catchy expressions in your everyday reading to note down in the register and the pocket book.

7. Build your stock of common English prefixes and roots.

8. Master the Academic Word List and regularly take some of the numerous free online tests to check your vocabulary growth.   

9. Deliberately put your vocabulary into practice in the essays you write. 

10. Borrow, buy or steal (ok, I am kidding!) one of the following books and read it from time to time. 

a. Webster's New Word Power Vocabulary.

b. 30 Days to a More Powerful Vocabulary by Dan Strutzel.

c. Instant Vocabulary by Ida Ehlrich.

Unexpected essay topic on exam day: now what?

Knowing that the statistics of failure (over 90%) in the CSS Essay examination put the odds against them, students come to the examination room well-prepared. Or so they think. 

One obvious reason for failure is that they cannot possibly prepare for all topics under the sun. And so on exam day, many CSS aspirants are forced to choose between a rock (difficult topic X) and a hard place (difficult topic Y). I have addressed this decision challenge on this blog in detail with a helpful flowchart.  

Here, I just want to share a few techniques to get your juices flowing after you have chosen the essay prompt. 

1. Brainstorm: Using a spidergram, think quickly on paper in point form, without filtering your ideas or worrying about grammar or even language (yes, you can brainstorm in your native language!).

The spidergram format is more helpful by design than the list format because it allows your ideas to grow organically. Using different ink colours (for different ideas) and pictures (instead of just words) is known as mind-mapping. Research suggests mind-mapping can be more creative and productive than simple brainstorming. 

2. Freewriting: Give yourself 5-10 minutes to write continuously on a topic. Again, don't worry about the conventions of language. The only rule is that you write as much as you can without stopping at all. After you have done that, ask yourself: Is there a pattern in the writeup — a recurring theme, a promising idea, a lead that you could pick up?

3. Ask yourself all the WH-questions about the topic: How?Where? When? Why? What? Who/whom/whose? Park the answers to the relevant questions around the spidergram. 

4. Use Edward de Bono's six thinking hats to brood over the topic.

Of course outside the examination setting there are plenty of other ways to generate ideas but you are in the examination room. Tick tock! Tick Tock!

A paragraph or three about paragraphing

In any essay longer than one paragraph, paragraphing is the decision to end the sentence mid-line, almost always to start a new block of writing (another paragraph) from a fresh line. The 'almost' in the last sentence is to accommodate the very last paragraph of the essay, to which the second half of the definition of paragraphing obviously doesn't apply. 

Now a paragraph performs certain well-defined functions. One, it may convey a new idea or a major development of an idea that has already been presented. Two, it may bridge distinct lines of reasoning, signalling a transition or shift from one way of thinking to another. Three, a paragraph (as in the case of the opening or closing of the essay) may have a strategic function. In the case of the essay opener, the goal is not only to situate the topic and plant the thesis but crucially to grab the attention of the reader. Similarly, the closing paragraph aims to wind the topic down to a graceful halt but also looks to leave a lingering appeal.

Indented, justified

Flush left, justified

In addition to being mindful of why you want to end one paragraph or start another, there are also a few simple tips about the mechanics of paragraphing.  If you are going to indent your paragraphs, indent all but the first paragraph. Try to keep the size of indentation consistent throughout the essay, say, the width of your forefinger. It is perfectly fine however to start all paragraphs, flush left. 'Justifying' i.e. writing within column borders on both sides of the page (as in a newspaper) is also a smart practice. And yes, leave one line blank between paragraphs. The upshot of all this advice is that paragraphing is intended to facilitate the reader. If you do it right, your essay will be easier to bite, chew and digest.     

Précis writing in a nutshell

Much ado is made about the difference between a précis and a summary. It is said that while both are brief, a précis—as the word itself suggests—is more precise or exact in matching the language and structure of the original passage (and so less brief), while the summary is more interpretive and freer. 

For CSS students however, these differences are minutiae that can be safely set aside. 

The nitty-gritty of summary writing is identical to that of the précis writing process.

1. Locate the central idea or the thesis. 

2. Distill each paragraph down to one point (maybe a single phrase or even a complex sentence).

3. Figure out how each paragraph point is related to the thesis. For each paragraph, ask: Is the paragraph about a cause or factor that motivates or explains the thesis? Is it an effect or outcome of the thesis claim? Is it an aspect, sign or manifestation of the central idea? And so forth. 

4. Connect these paragraph points into relation clusters: For example, all paragraph points that express a cause should be lumped together. 

5. Rewrite the original passage in your own words, with the help of (1) and (4).      

How long should your CSS essay be?

I think Sir Francis Bacon, the father of the English essay, would probably have failed the CSS Essay Exam, if he had left the exam room filling just three pages of the answer book with his signature pithy prose. Doubtless even one page of Baconian prose is a powder keg of wit, wisdom and wisecracks. But remember the CSS Essay is not intended to measure your intellectual erudition or literary brilliance.

It is aimed at assessing your ability to present your point of view on a topic coherently, comprehensively and compellingly. That entails some expectations about structure and detail. 

The essay must conform to a recognisable essay architecture and include sufficient and satisfactory resources in its support. 

True, both these conditions could be met in a one pager. However, there is a reason why you are allowed three hours to write the essay. 

Also, remember the CSS  Essay is part of a competition, and the length of the essay you produce will invariably get compared to the average length of a typical essay the examiner is evaluating. 

Many successful students recommend the 5000-word mark as the gold standard. 

I personally think this figure is on the higher side. Realistically speaking, if you are able to churn out even 4000 words of coherent and compelling prose in the CSS examination room, you have good reason to keep your chin up.              

The proof of the essay is in the evidence

Sometimes people ask a deceptively simple question about things. It goes something like this: What is the most important piece of X? What is the most vital organ of the human body? What is the most critical component in a motor car? What is the most important part of an essay?

All such questions have the same answer: It depends! Every piece is important in its own way. You need the engine to drive the car forward but without the nuts on the wheel you can't get the vehicle go very far. Likewise, the brain and the heart matter obviously more than most organs in particular ways, but you need teeth to grind the food and nose hair to filter the dusty air you breathe, and through a complicated chain of relations, the teeth and the nose hair enable the brain and the heart to receive the energy they need to function. 

The same is true for the essay. The thesis of the essay is at the heart of the essay. But unless you feed the essay with concrete and varied evidence, the essay will have no life. 

To repeat, the supporting evidence must at once be specific (e.g. quotations, examples, stories and facts) and diverse (e.g. not all quotes or just stories).