How not to start your essay

You can’t do worse than to turn your opening paragraph into a think-aloud section, strewn with random sentences on the topic, moving like flotsam and jetsam in the Lyari nullah in Karachi. Once you have lost the examiner’s respect for your introduction—and that can happen within the first 30 seconds—it would be hard to regain their attention favourably, no matter how stellar the rest of your essay is.

Another sure-fire way to lose the examiner’s interest in your essay is to begin with a cliché. Let’s say, you are writing on ‘The suffering soul in the scientific age’ and you begin: “Science and technology have been a great blessing to humanity… (The examiner yawns). Yet, they have also been a curse in many ways as people of Hiroshima and Nagasaki can testify to this day” (The yawn becomes bigger!).

Another bummer is a done-to-death quotation or proverb vaguely related to the topic. Avoid such an opening like COVID-19! Given the topic ‘Justice delayed is justice denied’, let's say you kick off by saying: “There is a proverb in English, Honesty is the best policy. No one can deny the universal truth of this maxim”.

Well, to be honest, you will find folks to question the validity of the proverb itself. But with an opening of this kind, you won’t find an examiner in the world eager to read the rest of the essay! 

What's the best topic to write on?

All topics are not equal. On the day of the examination, your chances of writing a great essay would vary from topic to topic based on a number of factors. 

Here’s how to make the right decision. First: look at the wording. Some of the topic options are phrases (e.g. ‘Global warming’); others are questions (e.g. ‘Can meaning be fixed?’) or claims (e.g. ‘Dialogue is the best course to combat terrorism’). In general, prefer topic claims over questions, and questions over topic phrases. 

Here's why. 

Topic phrases are open-ended and would need a heck of spadework. Questions are better in that they imply a range of specific topic areas you are expected to discuss. However, if you choose a topic question, you must be able to discuss it from at least two angles. 

Topic claims are the best. Your stance on the subject is pre-decided on your behalf. You may already be loaded with ideas and evidence. All you would need is an essay plan.    

The second factor to consider in choosing the right topic is the quality of the thesis on which you expect to peg your essay. If you fear a certain topic would take you down a tunnel of a beat-up position that nine people out of 10 already agree to or on the other hand it would be a hot potato (i.e. the topic would push you into taking a highly controversial position), scratch that option. 

The third and perhaps the most important consideration should be the resources or the raw material at hand. Which of the given topics brings to mind lots of examples, quotations, statistics, facts or/and stories? 

And yes, don't forget to compare the relative appeal of the topics. Avoid proverbs (e.g. ‘All work and no play make Jack a dull boy’), predictably popular topics (e.g. 'The post-covid-19 economy’) and survey-type discussion topics (‘Energy crisis in Pakistan: causes and consequences’).

If all this sounds too complicated, rely on the this flow chart to make the right decision. 

9 reasons why English matters more to CSS success than people think!

If you are reading this post, chances are you probably know most of them already. Still, the importance of mastering English communication skills is worth reiterating. Here are the top 9 reasons why you should not stop investing in improving your proficiency in the language, even after you have crossed all the hoops and become a CSP officer.     

1. The Central Superior Services Examination includes two English papers that are compulsory. Fail even one of them and you are out of the race. But wait. There’s a lot more!
2. Isn’t English the medium of examination for most papers? Think about that! If you improve your grammar, vocabulary, spellings and punctuation and your penmanship (hand writing), they will serve you well in all your papers.  
3. Essay writing is the default mode of answering most of the questions in most of the subjects. If you master the English essay, you will be on top of the academic writing game across disciplines.
4. Preparation for all but a handful of optional subjects requires loads of reading. Guess the language in which you will find most of the resources for most of your papers.   
5. Being able to read a passage quickly and respond to comprehension questions requires skimming and scanning. These are reading strategies that improve one’s academic efficiency regardless of the subject.    
6. Plenty of prep resources are in the form of audio-visual lectures, discussions and interviews on YouTube, TED and other platforms.
7. What about note-taking? It should be a no-brainer that if your medium of examination is Turkish, the notes you take down during preparation would be more helpful in Turkish than in Swahili, Tamil or Tok Pisin—even if any of these happens to be your first language. Hope you get the point!
8. Being able to write a good précis amounts to being able capture the central idea and the main points in a piece. Once again, the usefulness of the skill is hardly exclusive to the English paper. Research shows the knack to spot and synthesize the gist of an article or essay is one of the measures of academic and professional success.
9. You have made it to the merit list. Now comes psychological assessment and then the interview. Guess which language gives you the ultimate edge over your competitors?         

Congratulations! You are now a Civil Servant of Pakistan. Whether you like it or not, English is still the language of our bureaucracy. Master it now: you will reap the rewards for the rest of your life! As Anwer Masood, the great poet from Gujrat says:   

Avoiding failure doesn't guarantee success!

In 1968, Frederick Herzberg published what became the article most widely requested for reprints on Harvard Business Review. Herzberg turned the conventional wisdom on its head by arguing that factors that keep employees positively engaged and energized in their organization (e.g. meaningfulness of work) are other than or separate from the factors which demotivate them (e.g. poor salary). The 2-Factor Theory famously debunked the value organizations placed on material compensation as the core driver of employee motivation.

Success in the CSS English papers is somewhat like that. 

Yes, you do have to work on factors of failure—weak grammar, poor spellings, bad hand writing. But fixing these problems won’t guarantee success. 

Why? 

Because factors of success in the Essay as well as in the Precis and Composition paper are separate from the problems which lead to failure. 

It is ultimately the coherence of your argument, the quality of your presentation and the clarity of your expression that would win you a place on the merit list, provided, as I said, your grammar, spellings and your hand writing don't get in the way. 

Conversely,  even if your grammar is immaculate, your spellings are perfect and your hand writing is as symmetrical as printed fonts, these virtues combined won't alone suffice to earn you a passing grade.  

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