Essay

What the official syllabus says

Paper 2: English (Main Examination), type of question 1:

ESSAY (About 500 words): Choose any one topic from a list of five. (Marks allotted: 80)

The essay carries the most marks in this paper, 80 of 300.

Topics in detail

Choosing and reading the topic

• Reading all five topics and choosing the one on which you have clear ideas and examples, not the one that merely looks familiar.
• Underlining the key words of the topic and deciding what it is asking: to describe, to argue, to discuss both sides, or to reflect.
• Kinds of topics to practise: education, technology and society, environment, health, women and youth, rural and urban life, governance and citizens, Gujarat's development and culture, sport, media, and reflective topics.

Planning about 500 words

• A short plan: the central idea in one sentence and four or five points in a sensible order.
• Introduction (one paragraph): what the topic means and what the essay will show.
• Body (three or four paragraphs): one point per paragraph, each with a reason or an example.
• Conclusion (one paragraph): a summing-up or a balanced way forward, not a new argument.
• Keeping close to about 500 words: long enough to develop the points, short enough to leave time for the other questions.

Language

• Clear, correct sentences of varied length; avoiding very long sentences that lose their grammar.
• Linking words that show the movement of the argument: however, therefore, moreover, on the other hand, as a result.
• Precise words rather than ornate ones; no slang, no abbreviations without explanation.
• Correct spelling, punctuation and paragraphing; a few minutes kept at the end to read the essay through.

Practice checklist

• One timed essay of 500 words a week on a topic chosen at random from a list.
• Reading an English newspaper's editorials for ideas, facts and the vocabulary of public issues.
• Keeping a list of your common errors (articles, prepositions, tense) and checking for them in each essay.

Overlaps

The Essay paper asks for two essays of about 1,000 to 1,200 words each, counted for merit; the planning practised here scales up to it. The Gujarati paper's short essay is the same task in Gujarati.