Hi all,
We are all fully aware that Answer-writing is the most important aspect for the Mains exam. One may have a lot of knowledge and information, however, if the same is not reflected in a succinct and holistic manner, it can prove detrimental. I have a 2 basic queries about Answer-writing and wanted your views/opinions/strategy on the same.
1. During the course of writing Mains (those who have) and Answer-writing practice (for others), most of us would have come across a situation wherein we couldn't answer to the best of our ability. As in, at a later time, we realize that there were more points that could have been mentioned. There are also situation when we would have handled a question in a manner different to how we actually did. In my opinion, we are extremely time-stressed and this leads to inability/restriction to think freely and holistically. Others too must have felt similarly. What steps have you taken for improvement?
2. The second point is rather in continuation with the above. We all would have heard from seniors/read on blog/suggested by people, that there should be some questions which should be learnt by heart and should be reproduced/vomited verbatim on the answer sheet. This strategy may have worked in the past, when questions were pretty predictable. It may work to a certain extent for some of the Optional, though Mains-2012 (at-least Pub Ad and Geography, the ones that I have some decent idea about) proved that even Optional Paper requires analysis and conceptual understanding than plain rote. However we are equally time-stressed during Answer-writing for Optional as well. What do you guys opine, how can this be handled? This may seem like a repetition of Point.1, however, the basic difference being that Optional are still relatively predictable over the GS Papers, especially for this year.
I believe these are some issues that bother most of the aspirants and wanted to gather your views and opinions on the same.
Cheers!
Comments
Not sure if I can improve by practicing more answer writing
Regarding your first query one thing i'm trying to do(or rather not do) to improve my answers is not to focus too obsessively about the time element at this juncture. Take extra time to think and construct your answers and focus on the quality of the answer. Speed will automatically increase with practice . And towards the last couple of months you can obviously start timing yourself.
These are my doubts regarding answer writing
1)My first query is regarding particular type of questions where I feel that the question implicitly wants you to take a particular position. Just putting two random examples.
“Compared to the South Asian Trade Area (SAFTA), the Bay of Bengal Initiative for Multisectoral Technical and Economic Cooperation Free Trade Area (BIMSTEC FTA) seems to be more promising.” Critically evaluate.
“There is an urgent need for the Planning Commission to revise the chapter on health in the 12th Plan document.” Comment.
What if you do not agree with the position of the comment(hypothetically). I find this mostly in the case of statement related questions. Even though it may say ‘critically examine’ the statement seems to implicitly tell you the position you must take or at least the final conclusion you must come to.Or am I missing something?
In such cases is it wise to disagree with the comment? Or should you just play safe and mostly put forward the points in favour of the statement or come to that conclusion.
2) The second query is related to the structure of the answer. I've seen quite a few people writing the title of the point in bold before proceeding with the explanation of a point. I've generally just written in paragraph form and underlined what i felt is important. But i feel this imparts a clear structure to the answer and makes the job of the invigilator also easy.Is that a good idea and is it generally accepted?
I understand previous papers are a good source to start with .. but answers to cross check my answers is what I'm looking for.
Kindly suggest.
The questions you listed above do not have binary true/false answers. Hence, you will get marks irrespective of the stand you take, what matters more is how you put forth arguments in its support. The best case would be a balanced answer with points in favor and against of both, but eventually ending on an unequivocal stand in favor of one explaining your reason.
Which side you will eventually take is your decision based on your knowledge and reasoning, and you shouldn't go in with a preconceived notion of always agreeing or always disagreeing with the statement in question. For example, I'd say there is no urgent need to revise the chapter on Health as even though there are many issues, the plan is on the right track as the chapter recognizes all the pertinent issues and is looking to increase the spending but within the constraints of budget. At the same time, I'd agree with the statement that BIMSTEC is more promising than SAFTA. So, you have to decide on a case to case basis and can't have a rule.
http://forumias.com/discussion/1725/peer-review-gs-questions-answers#Item_34
Let me put 2 questions
1)Critically examine the role of CCI considering the economic situation in India.
2)The CCI is a welcome move given the economic situation in India.Discuss. (VisionIAS test)
The nature of both questions seem the same to me but the second question appears(to me) to suggest that after i put forward my points the conclusion one must draw has to be in support of the statement while in the first case it seems to give you a bit of leverage(say if you believe the CCI is just going to be just another toothless body).In the second case would it be fine to draw a conclusion against the statement(hypothetically if that's what i believe and can substantiate)?
Maybe i'm wrong about it but i hope i clarified my question.
If you ask me, there is absolutely no difference between the two questions. You can nit-pick and find differences, sure, but in essence you just have to evaluate CCI in view of the current economic situation in both the cases. I'd write this as answer to both: As economic activities become more complex in an economy, a specialized body is needed to look after matters of unfair competition. There is greater consumer awareness today, so their interests which may be affected by monopoly and other malpractices have to be looked after proactively. If every time businesses had to approach the judiciary, the litigation process will slow down the growth of economy; while CCI looks after only such cases and in a limited number of days. And so on.
It's another matter that somebody will say '"Evaluate" role of CCI', which I used as my question, would be a third type of question. In my sincere opinion, reading way too much between the lines (words in this case) is counter-productive. I believe it's just one of the myriad ways the coachings try to enforce their template-based learning on the unsuspecting customers. About what 'evaluate' means and what 'analyze' means and what 'critically analyze' means. A good test would be to show the two questions to a non-aspirant whose opinion you value, someone in family or a friend, who hasn't been brainwashed yet by these 'rules', and ask what the difference is.
I am not saying that we should totally ignore the construction of the sentence in the question or the choice of the words used. What I am saying is we shouldn't be going oh it says evaluate and not analyze or comment, so I should be doing this. And in any case, half the times we will have such dearth of points to say in our answer that these things won't even matter.