Fiza Bibi Ameen is a gold medal qualifier in BS Physics from Riphah International University, Islamabad. She also contributed a prize-winning submission to the HEC inter-university essay writing competition held in 2022. She enjoys researching and writing about science, technology, and informative topics in various niches. She is a freelance writer and may be contacted at [email protected].
Essay Writing in CSS Exams
Essay writing for a competitive test is the most daunting task for some and the favorite of others. Likely so, in CSS exams, the essay exam holds a phenomenal place as the results are not as optimistic as candidates would like to expect. For example, in the CSS 2020 exams, only about 4% of applying candidates passed the essay exam. The results of a full-fledged year improved in 2021, only to reach a pass percentage of 13%.
When you look at the statistics, it is natural to wonder what went wrong for Pakistan. Does it have anything to do with the dwindling educational standards due to the large number of private universities with academic rules that are too lenient? Is it the compatibility of a graduate, with at least 14 years of formal education, to blame? Another question remains: does the checking in a patterned way influence the results? And if that is true, is it justified to view a candidate’s take on a topic with such fixation?
Even though a personal blog or post has no credibility as a source of knowledge in the age of social media, we cannot, however, ignore the underlying factors that prompted such reactions from the populace. Thus, along with the criticism of graduates’ personal learning and institutes’ commitment to dispense knowledge responsibly, the concern about the slanted analytical view while checking the exam has also been growing. What is hiding behind the curtains needs to be discovered, regardless.
Writing an Essay
The journey to writing an essay on a topic starts with fitting it with an essay structure and the type (such as argumentative, expository, analytical, etc.) to present the information about different topics in the most authentic and organized way. What keeps the road to an essay new, no matter how much one prepares himself with information, is the new demand of the topic, which, in essence, has novelty knitted with it. For example, around the theme of “feminism,” each exam sets different directions to heed as a writer in CSS exams. Furthermore, having covered feminism while preparing for an essay does not necessarily imply having covered the essay being asked. This again points out the need for comprehension rather than shallow yet hard essay practices.
It has been argued that in competitive essays, there is rigidity about what perspective is a surefire mark to short-list a candidate’s take for top grades. Many argue whether that fixation is justified. But, by and large, the fixation is because of the rules inherently knitted into the essay—the rules to hit that point, which is the heart and soul of the topic. Each writer’s writing voice is different, and that is where their power resides. With practice, the writer or aspirant, whatever a CSS candidate would love to call himself, develops a voice that is different from the voice they were developing while imitating the patterns of phenomenal reads.
However, the issue is not one of writing voice but of writing approach. Is it all-encompassing? Does it touch on the demand for which the topic was set? Does it add something new and unique? The answers to these questions require a dissection of individual attempts at a topic and why (or why not) it garnered attention to qualify for exceptional marks, which, of course, is not feasible given the diversity and number of students, which was 13,008 in 2023, for example.
HEC’s Writing Competition: An Example
Let’s view it through the essay writing competition organized by the Higher Education Commission (HEC) in August 2022 on the 75th anniversary of Pakistan’s independence. The competition involved students from all universities across Pakistan and Azad Jammu and Kashmir. The topics in Urdu and English were:
- Development Journey of Pakistan from 1947 to 2022: Lessons Learnt viz-a-viz Developing Countries
- Pakistan at 2047: National Youth Aspirations
This was the time when Pakistan’s political unrest had already translated into economic downturns, and Pakistan was nowhere at par with the vision it had set for the year 2047—a year marking Pakistan’s centenary. The freedom of speech, assembly, justice, and protection promised by the rule of law failed to serve the country, as was apparent not only by the indexes but also by the ground realities haunting Pakistan’s nightmares. Pakistan was highly vulnerable to financial debts, and the heavy clouds of default risk had covered the horizons.
The World Bank’s reports kept on warning countries with mostly young populations, like Pakistan, about the potential risk of the youth bulge transitioning into a demographic bomb if the young population is left unsatisfied with the way things are. Pakistan began seeing its biggest manifestation in those years. With such ground realities, it might appear to the competitor that heeding the topic from a positive direction is like a fabrication of what is not there. But the question is: what does the topic actually require? Does it include an encouraging undertone or a critical one? If ground realities demand that we blend both of these approaches well, which approach should be emphasized more?
The selection criteria of the judges, as they announced while appreciating the winners, was their creativity towards an optimistic approach and the research backing that approach. The ground realities of that time seemed pertinent and almost seemed to qualify as a guiding parameter when every new wave of news confided about the bleakness of Pakistan’s future. The essay’s undertone (which is to say, the keyword), however, decided the criteria.
Now, that did not have to involve fabricated stories because if one researches Pakistan’s today in comparison with its past, the challenges it surmounted formerly, and the prospects its geo-strategic position has across the globe, the hope oozes naturally. Thus, winning the competition required more than a neat writing style and extensive research. For the most part, it needed the focus that the topic’s undertone implied.
Similarly, the descriptive word in every essay’s title highlights the demand that the topic has, the research questions it covers within itself, and the arguments that would decently answer them. According to experts, the best way to determine the direction in which the keyword would prefer the writer to heed is to ask the underlying questions, regardless of whether the writing is for an academic commitment or the world beyond it. Thus, by discerning the known sources, specificity, connectivity, and narrowing the focus, the research questions help the candidate figure out whether what he or she has to offer for the topic is enough to satisfy the inherent demand of the topic.
In the world of CSS aspirants, along with emphasizing the importance and harsh realities of the essay paper, what seems plain is that either a person’s already strong background and talent in academia translate into passing and outperforming in the essay or the persistence of months and years pays off. However, the similarity between talent and hard work is the discernment of direction.
Thus, both the celebrated ones who have not practiced essays extensively (as is the case of some winners) and the ones who keep on practicing until they stand out have discovered what the topic they ultimately choose requires of them. Thus, years of practice, speed, undivided attention (such as the aspirants not doing 9–5 jobs), learning speed, and the attended academies are not the utmost defining factors but rather the path to essay. Those who figure it out eventually succeed.
Conclusion
Students hailing from diverse academic and professional backgrounds choose to appear in CSS exams. The plethora of information and advice available in today’s connected world is a double-edged sword. It can inspire the aspirant to reach the skies of motivation, but it can also impede the aspirant’s ability to focus by instilling the view that only a specific approach and the most talented ones have proven to succeed. With such information and more about the need for top-notch English skills, an aspirant might get demotivated frequently.
However, the thing that sets the strivers apart from others is how early they ascertain what is expected of them about the problem, project, or even the question at hand. Thus, it is not the fixation in the analysis of the CSS essay exam that makes it a hard nut to crack, but the inbuilt fixation in the essence of an essay. Through the right research questions, an aspirant can better understand the dimensions a CSS essay wants him to explore, rather than focusing on a dimension in which he or she covered theme-specific information (such as feminism) during his exam preparation.
If you want to submit your articles, research papers, and book reviews, please check the Submissions page.
The views and opinions expressed in this article/paper are the author’s own and do not necessarily reflect the editorial position of Paradigm Shift.
