How to Write Effective Essay in IAS Exam 2020?

Are you looking forward to crack IAS exam in 2020?

Do you think essay writing is the biggest hurdle in passing it?

You can learn general studies. Even, an IAS coaching in Delhi, Mumbai or any other metropolitan city can teach amazing shortcuts to through logical reasoning. But, how can you leap across the essay writing in this UPSC qualifying exam?

Pardon! But, there is no magic to transform you into a master of essays. It needs a lot of research, practice and smart-thinking. The smart thinking can help you to get through this hurdle like a piece of pie.

Help yourself with the tips and tricks that I have shared in this piece of valuable essay writing tips. Success will be all yours. 

What should not you think of?

Let’s boost up your confidence first. You may have a lot of misunderstands pertaining to the penning down the essay. Remember the fact that you’re going to give the toughest government job exam. So, it’s necessary to clear them.

• Writing skill needs you to be a master of this art. (Indeed, you can score high with the basic grammatical skills if you spin them with some interesting facts.)
• You don’t need to prepare for it as you have a lot of stuff to flood your essay with. (What you have learnt in general study is not enough.)
• You can learn how to write an effective essay overnight. (You can never do so, believe me.)
• Just one-time reading the topic is enough. (You may derive wrong idea at one glance.)
• Technical terms should be at the back of your mind. (Absolutely not, as you can play with fine examples that coincide with the topic.)
• Inputting what your opinion is. (Rather, you should put the positive and negative aspects simultaneously.)

What should you prepare?

• Reading should be a routine:

Yes, you should be consistent with reading habit. Don’t push yourself into long reading. Just be a regular newspaper reader, if you’re short of time. But, you can go through magazines and online articles if you have hours to read on. What you can do while reading is:

• Underline the difficult words to enrich your vocabulary.
• Make points of the facts that can help in the general studies also.
• Have debate with your friends and relatives over a word, phrase or points for gathering more opinions and getting clarification.
• Enhance brainstorming by relating the sequential stories.
• Get training: It’s for those who can’t do self study. They can register with IAS coaching institute, Delhi or nearby location. Drill into head that taking notes can’t better your skill. You have the clarity over the basic grammar rules, at least.
• Study notes.
• Go through mock tests for IAS exam in 2020.
• Learn through live-streaming on YouTube or Facebook.
• Learn online, if you like.
• Be regular with note-making of what you’ve learnt.
• Time-Management: Time has wings. A little bit of mismanagement can push you into failure. Schedule time for reading, writing, understanding and drafting points separately. This planning will work out well when you have a proper sketch of how to attempt an essay in the UPSC exam. Have a look over this time-division plan.

Topic Selection: 5 minutes

Drafting rough points: 15 minutes-20 minutes

Writing essay: 1 hour

Revision: 5 minutes

• Vocabulary: As I have said, you can’t grasp the whole dictionary overnight. If you have learnt, you won’t be able to recall as your mind would be jumbled over picking the perfect word or phrase at a time. It’s a common challenge that every learner faces off. You can be richer by vocabulary by:
• Playing word-games
• Learning synonyms
• Word-puzzles
• Idioms usage in sentences
• Cracking riddles
• Reading books
• Writing daily  

How can you write an effective essay in the IAS or UPSC exam, 2020?

1. Read instruction thoroughly:

What the IAS examination reads is: “Candidates may be required to write essays on multiple topics. They will be expected to keep closely to the subject of the essay, to arrange their ideas in an orderly fashion, and to write concisely. Credit will be given for effective and exact expression.”

Don’t be hasty in deriving meaning of the topic. It may lead to a wrong sense. To eliminate such misunderstanding,

• Split the topic into parts.
• Understand the meaning.
• Pick up the keywords. For example-the topic ‘career opportunity for equality’ has two keywords-‘career opportunity’ and ‘equality’
• Think about these keywords from social, economical, political, cultural, legal, international and humanistic aspects.
• Recall and draw rough points regarding the topic.

2. Which topic should you choose?

You should possess holistic view, understanding and points to describe upon the topic, be it any one. Therefore, you should pick up the one about you can:

• Write comfortably
• Explain well
• Have a rich data or information
• Make interesting with famous examples

3. Brainstorm and make points:

As it has been mentioned above in the time-division, you should gather the points. Divide them into the standard sections that structure the essay. Follow this trick.

• Begin with the past (what used to happen)
• Take it to the present (explain the current scenario)
• Sneak peek into the future (what can happen in the future)
• Make sub-headings and their sub categories

4. Streamlining the points:

It’s a crucial part of the essay spinning. You have to arrange every point as they are interlinked. It’s like a story whose every paragraph has a connection with the last one. You can:

• Ask a question at the end of the paragraph.
• Signal that you’re going to explain what the next is.

5. Essay structuring:

It’s what defines the impact and effectiveness of the essay. Your arrangement of thoughts and points should follow this hierarchy:

• Introduction
• Body
• Illustrations
• Examples
• Arguments (pros and cons)

It’s not necessary that you have to stuff heavy and difficult words. Just keep it simple. Make short sentences if you think that you can lose the tempo or can make grammatical mistakes. Don’t create long and complex sentences. Integrate examples that are well-known. Try to include the current ones.

Conclusion: It’s an important section. Summarize your thoughts into a paragraph. Make sure that you don’t echo ranting. You can embed suggestions or recommendations that have been pervasive and actionable.