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)].