7 Tips to Boost Your UPSC Answer Writing Practice: Enhance Your Writing Skills

9 minutes. 540 seconds. That is roughly the amount of time you are going to spend reading this article. This is also the exact amount of time you will need to finish one UPSC mains answer writing. The one answer, which carries 12.5 marks.

What you may score on that may range from a zero to around 10. To get a zero, you have to be absolutely ignorant about what has been asked. If it is the case, no one can help you. To score a 10, you need to be a master of that specific problem, almost as if you have been thinking about that and working on that since you were born.

How to Start Answer Writing Practise for UPSC? 

Generally, we all lie somewhere in the middle. In that middle range, you may get a score from 4 to 8. This is the range, by moving up in which, you can reach from a rejected candidate to the status of a top 100 candidate. By adopting some simple UPSC answer writing methods, you can propel yourself to get almost 50% more marks on the basis of the same content. Let’s understand how we can do that.

1. Read the Question Again and Again:

Your job is not to write an article but to answer a question. Out of the 9 minutes, spend the first one minute reading the question again and again. Underline the keyword of the question. Use your pen/ pencil to do that. You don’t get additional marks for a clean question paper.

2. Elucidate/ Discuss/ Critically Analyze

Many aspirants seem to be really confused about what they should write if the UPSC mains answer writing question uses any of these keywords. 

The same thing! In 9 minutes, you are not supposed to present a very nuanced article on the issue. Just write whatever you know of the topic. There is no need to go for any tweaking of your response because of a different word at the end of the question.

3. Structure Your Answer

• Everybody says that, but let’s find out how. You have 250 words to write your answer. Spend the first 30 words to introduce the problem. Sometimes, it might seem to be a very short introduction, but that’s okay. You need to get to the point super fast. 
• Spend at least 170-180 words to the main point of the question. 
• Ideally, there should be two or three main points which you should write about. If there are more points than that, you may also use bullet points to make your point.
• In this main body, always provide the critique of the points you make. There should never be a total endorsement of any idea. At least one major critique has to be provided. 
• In the end, you must provide a conclusion. It might be “what is the final takeaway” kind of a couple of sentences, but it is absolutely necessary. 
• There is no way your content should end without a conclusion.

4. Quotations, Sayings

Avoid using too many quotes in essay writing UPSC. They tend to dilute the message as they consume time and space and leave you with lesser energy to write the actual response. If there is a quote, which suits the question perfectly, use that in your UPSC answer writing, but, never more than one. 

Also Read: Tips to Prepare for Disaster Management Topic for UPSC Civil Service Mains Exam

5. Diagrams, Maps

Oh yes! Use diagrams and maps as and where you can, make it a part of your UPSC answer writing practice. They save time in explaining a concept or an idea. Also, they save the examiner from the monotony of reading texts all the time. But use then, when they are needed, do not push it.

6. Handwriting

Whatever anyone might say, it plays a big role in the presentability of your content. If you are not blessed with good handwriting, just practice two things in your daily answer writing. 

First, try writing bigger and leave more space between words and sentences. Second, make sure that you write in a straight line on an unruled paper. If you follow these two rules, what you write will be legible, which is a good enough factor in UPSC mains answer writing.

7. Practice and Even Some More UPSC Answer Writing Practice

Last but not the least, you need to keep practising for UPSC answer writing format regularly as your daily answer writing. Generally, students tend to take just a couple of month’s practice, in which they just write a few contents. It is just not enough. Writing is an art, you need to learn and cultivate. 

At UPSC Foundation Program, you get continuous training for two years, making you write almost 100 answers so that the writing becomes a cakewalk for you!

Best wishes!

Atul