Today we will show you some of the precis writing samples with answers. One of the most difficult tasks in the CSS examination is the English precis and composition paper. The very first question in this paper is related to the English precis. Candidates need to write a short precis (summary) of a given passage within a limited time, accurately.
In the previous write-up, we shared precis solutions from 1980 to 1990. In this write-up, we will show you some of the solved examples from past CSS papers (1991-1995). It will give you a general idea of what a precis should look like. And how you should prepare and practice for the exam.
CSS English Precis, 1991
Generally, European trains still stop at borders to change locomotives and staff. This is often necessary. The German and French voltage systems are incompatible. Spain — though not Portugal — has a broad gauge track. English bridges are lower than elsewhere, and passengers on German trains would need a ladder to reach French platforms, twice as high as their own. But those physical constraints pale in comparison to an even more formidable barrier — national chauvinism. While officials in Brussels strive for an integrated and efficiently run rail network to relieve the Continent’s gorged roads and airways, and cut down on pollution, three member countries —France, Germany and Italy—are working feverishly to develop their own expensive and mutually incompatible high-speed trains.
Solution: Precis Writing Samples with Answers
Title: European trains
European trains stop at borders to change staff and locomotives due to physical barriers and national prejudice. Officials in Brussels are struggling to introduce an integrated rail network to reduce pollution and traffic burden.
CSS English Precis, 1992
Throughout the ages of human development men have been subject to miseries of two kinds: those imposed by external nature, and, those that human beings misguidedly inflicted upon each other. At first, by far the worst evils were those that were due to the environment. Man was a rare species, whose survival was precarious. Without the agility of the monkey, without any coating of fur, he has difficulty in escaping from wild beasts, and in most parts of the world could not endure the winter’s cold. He had only two biological advantages: the upright posture freed his hands, and intelligence enabled him to transmit experience.
Gradually these two advantages gave him supremacy. The numbers of the human species increased beyond those of any other large mammals. But nature could still assert her power by means of flood and famine and pestilence and by exacting from the great majority of mankind incessant toil in the securing of daily bread.
In our own day our bondage to external nature is fast diminishing, as a result of the growth of scientific intelligence. Famines and pestilence still occur, but we know better, year by year, what should be done to prevent them. Hard work is still necessary, but only because we are unwise: given peace and co-operation, we could subsist on a very moderate amount of toil. With the existing technique, we can, whenever we choose to exercise wisdom, be free of many ancient- forms –of bondage to external nature.
But the evils that men inflict upon each other have not diminished to the same degree. There are still wars, oppressions, and hideous cruelties, and greedy men still snatch wealth from those who are less skillful or less ruthless than themselves. Love of power still leads to vast tyrannies, or to mere obstruction when its grosser forms are impossible. And fear —deep scarcely conscious fear— is still the dominant motive in very many lives.
Solution: Precis Writing Samples with Answers
Title: Impediments to the human development
Men have been subjected to two kinds of evils: being imposed by nature and being inflicted upon by his own being. He has survived because of his upright posture and certain extraordinary qualities. By virtue of his scientific intelligence and its rational application, man has succeeded in reducing the hostile forces of nature. But the evil that men inflict upon each other in the form of atrocities, lust for power, and warfare have still been hovering over his head.
CSS English Precis, 1993
The best aid to give is intellectual aid, a gift of useful knowledge. A gift of knowledge is infinitely preferable to a gift of material things. There are many reasons for this. Nothing becomes truly one’s own except on the basis of some genuine effort or sacrifice. A gift of material goods can be appropriated by the recipient without effort or sacrifice; it therefore rarely becomes his own and is all too frequently and easily treated as a mere windfall. A gift of intellectual goods, a gift of knowledge, is a very different matter. Without a genuine effort of appropriation on the part of the recipient there is no gift. To appropriate the gift and to make it one’s own is the same thing, and ‘neither moth nor rust doth corrupt. The gift of material goods makes people dependent, but the gift of knowledge makes them free. The gift of knowledge also has far more lasting effects and is far more closely relevant to the concept of ‘development.’ Give a man a fish, as the saying goes, and you are helping him a little bit for a very short time, teach him the act of fishing, and he can help himself all his life. Further, if you teach him to make his own fishing net, you have helped him to become not only self-supporting but also a self-reliant and independent, man and businessman.
This then should become the ever-increasing preoccupation of aid programs to make men self-reliant and independent by the generous supply of the appropriate intellectual gifts, gifts of relevant knowledge on the methods of self-help. This approach, incidentally, has also the advantage of being relatively cheap, of making money go a long way. For POUNDS 100/ – you may be able to equip one man with certain means of production, hut for the same money you may well be able to teach and hundred men to equip themselves. Perhaps a little ‘pump priming’ by way of material goods will in some cases, be helpful to speed the process of development.
Solution: Precis Writing Samples with Answers
Title: Knowledge is the Best Gift
The best aid to give is the aid of useful knowledge. It can only be achieved through genuine effort. It has more lasting effects and contributes to social development. The gift of intellectual enlightenment will always remain productive and makes men perfectly independent. Conversely, the gift of material goods can be appropriated without effort and sacrifice. It enslaves people, and its value also varies with the passage of time.
Precis is the main idea of a given passage expressed in a creative writing.
Rana Sagheer Ahmad, Assistant Professor(R)
CSS English Precis, 1994
“Education does not develop autonomously: it tends to be a mirror of society and is seldom at the cutting edge of social change. It is retrospective, even conservative, since it teaches the young what others have experienced and discovered-about the world. The future of education will be shaped not by educators, but by changes in demography, technology and the family. Its ends – to prepare students to live and work in their society – are likely to remain stable, but its means are likely to change dramatically”.
“Schools, colleges and universities will be redefined in fundamental ways: who is educated, how they are educated, where they are educated – all are due for upheaval. But their primary responsibility will be much the same as it is now: to teach knowledge of languages, science, history, government, economics, geography, mathematics and the arts, as well as the skills necessary to understand today’s problems and to use its technologies. In the decades ahead, there will be a solid consensus that, as Horace Mann, an American educator, wrote in 1846, “Intelligence is a primary ingredient in the wealth of nations”. In recognition of the power of this idea, education will be directed purposefully to develop intelligence as a vital national resource”.
“Even as nations recognize the value of education in creating human capital, the institutions that provide education will come under increasing strain. State systems of education may not survive demographic and technological change. Political upheavals in unstable regions and the case of international travel will ensure a steady flow of immigrants, legal and illegal, from poor nations to rich ones. As tides of immigration sweep across the rich world, the receiving nations have a choice: they can assimilate the newcomers to the home culture, or they can expect a proliferation of cultures within their borders. Early this century, state systems assimilated newcomers and taught them how to fit in. Today social science frowns on assimilation, seeing it as a form of cultural coercion, so state systems of education are likely to eschew cultural imposition. In effect, the state schools may encourage trends that raise doubts about the purpose or necessity of a state system of education”.
Solution: Precis Writing Samples with Answers
Title: State Education System
The education system develops with the development of society. Its future is shaped by social changes. Its end goal will remain same. Changes will only reform the delivery method. There are consensus that the end goal will be replaced with the development of intelligence in the future, but these changes will result in mass migration, straining of resources of the state educational institutions. Earlier they encourage assimilation of home culture, but it is now considered as coercion. This resulted in raising doubts about the purpose of the state education system.
CSS English Precis, 1995
When you see a cockroach or a bed-hug your first reaction is one of disgust and that is immediately, followed by a desire to exterminate the offensive creature. Later, in the garden, you see a butterfly or a dragonfly, and you are filled with admiration at its beauty and grace. Man’s feelings towards insects are ambivalent. He realizes that some of them for example, – flies and cockroaches arc threats to health. Mosquitoes and tsetse flies have in the past sapped the vitality of entire tribes or nations. Other insects are destructive and cause enormous losses. Such arc locusts, which can wipe out whole areas of crops in minutes; and termites, whose often insidious ravages, unless checked at an early stage, can end in the destructing of entire rows –of houses.
Yet men’s ways of living may undergo radical changes if certain species of insects were to become extinct. Bees, for example, pollinate the flowers of many plants which are food sources. In the past, honey was the only sweetening agent known to man in some remote parts of the world. Ants, although they bite and contaminate man’s food are useful scavengers which consume waste material that would otherwise pollute the environment.
Entomologists who have studied insect fossils believe them to have inhabited the earth for nearly 400 million years. Insects live in large numbers almost everywhere in the world, from the hottest deserts and the deepest caves to the peaks of-high mountains and even the snows of the polar caps.
Some insect communities are complex in organizations, prompting men to believe that they possess an ordered intelligence. But such organized behavior is clearly not due to – developed brains. If we have to compare them to humans, bee and ant groups behave like extreme totalitarian societies. Each bee or ant seems to have a determined role to play instinctively and does so without deviation.
The word “instinct” is often applied to insect behavior. But some insect behavior appears so clear that one tends to think that some sort of intelligence is at work. For example, the worker bee, upon relating to the hive after having found a new source of nectar, communicates his discovery by a kind of dance that tells other bees the direction and distance away from the nectar.
Solution: Precis Writing Samples with Answers
Title: Men and insects
Man has a dual attitude toward insects. Seeing an ugly insect, he wants to kill it. However, the sight of exotic insects, like butterflies delights him. Some insects are harmful to mankind and crops. On the other hand, bees and ants are highly beneficial for men and crops. Bees and ants have a complex but organized system of life which reflects the fact that some sort of intelligence is at work behind them. Worker bees, on finding a new source of nectar, communicate with other bees its distance and direction through a particular dance.
That’s all for today. In Sha Allah, we will discuss more in the next write-up. Stay tuned!
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