 Warm welcome viewers. This is Ketna from Shankar A.S. Academy and you are watching special videos brought to you by Shankar A.S. Academy. See in this video, we are going to address one important question that is prevailing among the UPSA aspirants. And what is that question? What level of English writing skills is required in the answers of the UPSA examination? To know this, first of all you have to understand the framework of UPSA examination. And what is the framework? In UPSC civil services examination, we have three parts or three levels. The first level is prelims and the next one is mains and the final one is interview. In prelims we have objective type questions and in interview we have oral conversations. And in mains, we have descriptive type questions and this is where your writing skills is required. So, what level of writing skills is required in mains? It depends. See in mains, we have different papers and each paper demands different level of writing skills. So, in this video, we will see what level of writing skills is required in each paper and how can we improve it. But before that, we have to make ourselves familiar with the different papers that we have in mains. We have four GS papers, two optional papers, two language papers and one essay paper. First of all, let us take the essay paper. See as we all know, it is an important paper. Why is that? Because it fetches you more marks when compared to other GS papers. See in essay paper, you have to remember one thing. You have to write an elaborate answer, right? Because essay paper, it is for 250 marks and you are writing only two essays and this means that each essay carries 125 marks. So, you have to write a lot. Like I said, you have to write elaborately. For this, you should be able to put your thoughts into words and these words should be as simple as possible. And this is one thing. And one more important thing about the essay paper is that you have to stay focused to the topic that is asked. You should not deviate. Since you have to write a lot and the essay demands an elaborate answer, you have the tendency to deviate from the topic that is asked. I will explain it with an example. Let us take the 2022 essay paper itself. There was this question. The time to repair the roof is when the sun is shining. See the interpretation of this phrase is that one should do a thing when it is the right time to do that particular thing. Here, you cannot repair a roof when it is raining, right? What will happen if you repair a roof when it is raining? The house will be flooded with rainwater. So, the main concept of this phrase is that one should do things at the appropriate time. So, under this topic, you can write examples from your personal experiences. You can take examples from history. You can even quote the wars won by the kings who acted at the appropriate time. But here, you cannot write the different types of roofs and when it should be repaired. That will be irrelevant, right? So, as far as essay paper is concerned, your answer should be simple, neat, elaborate and close to the topic. And one more important thing about the essay paper is that your answer should be in an organized way. Since essay contains a lot of information, if your answer is not organized, then the examiner will get lost. And more importantly, he will not understand what you're trying to convey. So, you have to write your answer in a structured way. And this is the level of writing skill that is required to write an essay paper. And this is about the essay paper. Now, let us see what is the level of writing skill required for GS papers. As you all know, we have four GS papers. And in these papers, NCRT-like answer writing is required. If you have read NCRT before itself, you will understand what I'm trying to convey. So, in NCRT, a particular topic will be explained in a concise and simple manner. And like that only, your answers should be in the GS paper. This is one thing. Secondly, GS papers have 10 marks questions for which you have to write 150 words, 20 marks questions for which you have to write 250 words. So, what does this mean? This means that we have word limit. So, you have to write your answer within this word limit. At the same time, you should be able to address the question that is asked. So, here you should acquire the skill of writing your answer precisely. At the same time, you should be able to address the question that is asked within the word limit. So, this is the second thing. Thirdly, you should be able to make a connection between the current affairs and the static portion and write your answer. Let me explain it with an example. Take the Russia-Ukraine war. Instead of just writing the geographic location of the countries and listing the causes of the war, you should be able to write different perspectives from the current affairs. You must have read different perspectives in the newspaper, right? You can quote them in your answer. For example, you can take social perspective, economic perspective, political perspective, environmental perspective. If possible, you can even write the ethical perspective also. And like this one, you should write your answers in the GS paper. For optional papers, you'll be fascinating to know about it. For optional papers, the same thing should be followed. See, here also, you should write in a simple and precise manner. You should stick to the word limit. You should address the question that is asked. And finally, you should be able to make connection with the current affairs. These we should follow as we followed in the GS paper. But the only difference is that GS papers are about general topics. But the optional papers, they are a little bit specific. Take for example, anthropology paper. In that paper, we have theories of human evolution and other such biological factors. Here, you cannot write a generalized answer. You have to quote different theories, thinkers and evidences provided by them. In GS papers also, you can quote a fact. But the fact that you're quoting in the optional paper, it should stick to the syllabus very strictly. And this is the only difference that you have to follow while writing the optional paper. Now, this is about the optional papers. And finally, we have two language papers. See, out of these two papers, one is English and the other one is a language of your choice. You can choose from any of the languages in the eighth schedule. See, these language papers, they are qualifying papers. You have to only get 75 marks out of the 300 marks. So, you only need a basic knowledge about these languages. See, when it comes to language papers, you have to concentrate on two things. One is your grammar and the other one is your ability to frame sentences without any mistakes. If you concentrate on these two, then you're good to go. So, these are all the requirements that you need in the UPSC examination. Now, let us move on to the improvement part. See, don't worry if you're lacking in any of the skills that we discussed before, you can improve it. Just follow the points that I'm going to tell you now and you will see the tremendous improvement in your writing skills. The first one is, read a lot. See, only if you read a lot, you will be able to write a better answer. See, while writing, you should be able to write smoothly and flawlessly. You should not get stuck anywhere, right? It will waste your time. So, to write smoothly and frame sentences easily, read a lot. Improve your vocabulary also. And the second point is, prepare a readymade structure for your answer. I'm not saying that you can prepare answer beforehand and take it inside and write it in the examination. No, it's not like that. Just have a skeleton of what you're going to write. You can think of schematic representations, flow charts and diagrams. See, these will help you stick to the word limit. And this is the second point. And the third point is, you have to avoid big, big technical terms. See, if you use technical terms, then you have to explain that term also. Then it will lead you to breach the word limit. That is not advisable. Use keywords that you read in the editorial. But do not use big, big technical terms. And the fourth point is, practice, practice. As we all know, practice makes a man perfect. Practice answer writing daily. Write at least one answer a day. This will help you a lot. And finally, watch English movies with subtitles. Now, that's all for this video. In this video, we saw about different writing skills that are required in different papers in UPSC mains. I hope this video was useful. If you like the video, like, share and comment and do subscribe to Shankar Ayes Academy's YouTube channel. And I'll see you in another special video like this. Until then, it's me signing off.