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What I believe is that an average student can generate some ideas on any given subject easily. So, if she can
be trained to write only the short, simple, grammatically correct and semantically sensible sentences then
half of the battle for her is over. Rest half of the battle lies in content, that is, how far she can go on to
research on the subject matter of the syllabus and how she can make use of her knowledge and facts to prove
her own arguments or thoughts. Most of the students can become able to do this easily but with some
practice and sincere efforts. Therefore, I think that this paper should be considered by most of the students.
If you have very good English and very good analytical skill then only I recommend you to appear for 8001.
This syllabus is more tough and requires good skills in comprehension and analysis. However, due to the
GPA grading system your grades may not be affected severely and therefore, you needn't worry too much
even if your exam doesn't go as expected.
Lastly, if you found yourself stuck in the middle of writing, searching either for the ideas or for the exact
word that describes what you want to express, then here are my suggestions. Without trying to be
perfectionist, express your ideas however you can. If you cant get any idea even after mulling over for a
few seconds, then cross the sentence and write a different idea altogether which you can comfortably write. I
mean do not hesitate to cross your answer and think over on the new ideas. A few mistakes wont do much
harm but if you cannot complete your essay for that matter, perhaps youll lose more. So, move on even if
you know that your idea is just okay and not perfect. - See more at: http://www.generalpaper.com/2012/09/five-ways-of-writing-gp-essay.html#more
While racism is absent, caste and gender discriminations are still huge problems in my society.
Here we can easily infer that racism is nonexistent but caste discrimination and gender discrimination are the
burning issues in the authors society. We can also expect that the author will outline the reasons behind such
discriminations as well as justify why the problems concerned are highly intense in his society.
This question is seeking answer to two particular questions:
What kinds of discrimination problems are present in your society? (Identification and justification of the
problem.)
To what extent are they problematic in your society? (Assessment of the intensity of the problem. Is the
problem serious or mild?)
The thesis statement above has concisely answered these both questions.
Example 3
Q. Can democracy be imposed or must it grow naturally?
Democracy will still be the 'rule of people' even if established by imposition, however, for full acceptance of
the people it should be allowed to grow naturally.
From this thesis statement, we are clear that the author is very positive about democracy. Democracy is the
rule of people no matter how we introduce it to a country. People are powered with various rights in a
democratic nation and their decision, expressed through voting and/or referendum, on the major issues of
national interest is the final one. The author seems to understand these facts about democracy.
However, we can infer from his thesis statement that he is also aware of the possible consequences of
imposing democracy. In the question, the word imposing contradicts directly with the principle of
democracy. Can we impose people to be free, even if they dont want to? can be an ethical question, a
question for debate. Perhaps, the people do not want to take their decision themselves. Perhaps they find it
easier, and totally comfortable to follow a dictator. For many reasons including religious, cultural and socioeconomic, people might be accepting the rule of a non-democratic leader. In such conditions, they may even
retaliate or revolt against any other forms of government, especially if imposed by some other people. The
author also understands this possibility. Hence, he thinks that if the democracy has to gain full support from
people, it should be allowed to grow naturally.
Conclusion
A thesis statement need not be difficult and complex. In fact, simpler and clearer thesis statements are better
as they can communicate your argument more effectively than the difficult ones. Moreover, thesis
statements are not that difficult to write if you practice writing them whenever you write a new GP essay.
Just be clear in your mind what you are writing and remember that the length or structure of the
sentence doesn't matter. Only what matters is that it should be able to give a big picture of the whole essay.
Your thesis statement is your answer to the question in a single sentence. - See more at: http://www.generalpaper.com/2012/10/writing-thesis-statement.html#more
Reasoning Ability
Reasoning is the skill to give your arguments or opinions in a logical way so as to convince your audience
that your opinion is the most appropriate one in the given circumstances. It is also your ability to argue on a
given topic and prove it by means of logical ideas and relevant examples.
Below is an interesting example of my reasoning. Read below and infer what reasoning skill is by yourself!
An Example of My reasoning
For example, you hate politics but as a rational thinker you must realize its importance and its necessity as
well as its shortcomings. The administrative tasks of our countries are running smoothly because of politics.
In the examples below I would criticize politics first and talk about its necessity and due importance in the
second paragraph.
We are divided into nationals, me being a Nepali for example, just because of politics. Otherwise, who on
earth is born with the name of his country and his nationality tagged on his forehead? In my personal
opinion, there is no necessity to feel proud of being a citizen of a particular country where, in fact, you were
born to be the citizen of this entire Earth. If it had been so we wouldn't have the need to go through the
hectic process of visas application and so on, just to go to a different country. We would have been able to go
to any place we like, to travel or to live in. However, due to our own segregation of this world we have
limited ourselves in a small geographical area, where in fact we could have been the nationals of this whole
world.
Nevertheless, all political divisions are the result of our systematic classification and they have helped us to
make our life easier as well. Dividing this world into several countries makes the ruling process more
effective and the implementation of law and order in a country more pragmatic and viable. For example,
polygamy is legal in some societies whereas illegal in others. If we consider this whole world as a single
country then the law of this world should either make polygamy legal or illegal. It would be more logical to
make it illegal but the society where it has been practiced for a long time would oppose this law. Again if the
state chose to treat those society differently with others and made polygamy legal for those societies then
other societies would oppose that law calling it biased and violation of equality or human rights or so and so.
It must be one of the greatest reasons why the larger countries have split their nation, the USA for example,
into several autonomous states, to make state laws by considering the social laws and norms.
In the above two paragraphs I have argued on both sides of the politics. However, I have tried to maintain a
distance with my own likes and dislikes, and yet I have presented my point of views, that is, my arguments
on both the sides of the subject matter. Aren't you convinced with each of my opinions? (Yes, please reply in
the comments section below.) You can do the same in your GP essays as well; make your arguments based
upon the reasons and not just your personal preference. Even if you include your personal preference then
make it sound reasonable by providing sound reasons. - See more at: http://www.generalpaper.com/2012/01/reasoning-ability.html#more
are a lot of texts even on a single sub-topic of a broad topic and reading all of them is neither possible nor
necessary. Therefore, determining the quality, relevance and validity of the information source is extremely
important which is explained here in detail.
Some more Tips
When you perform research with a purpose you can make notes of what to research and what you found out
from a research. Also you can keep a journal or diary regularly and this will also make you more aware
about where, when and how to research. A good research skill develops gradually and you should perform
research continuously to be able to search and get information about a particular topic more quickly.
GP Probable Question
First of all, I would like to share something with you:
I have tried to guess probable questions like this for four sessions with this one being the latest and in my
past guess-works, what I have experienced is that most of the students blindly rely on them and prepare only
on the topic areas listed here. And when the questions do not fall from the areas I have listed there they
simply show aggression. One person wrote in my Facebook Group in a satirical manner that, 100%
questions were asked from my predicted topics.
Now, read an article on another blog. Ms Adrienne de Souza writes how students get tricked by reading
probable questions. She frankly says that her predictions have been wrong before, like mine! And I've
always included "a note of warning/disclaimer" in each of the earlier predictions.
The reality is that, GP questions aren't difficult or from different topics than listed in probable questions
and/or syllabus. They are just contextual, and situation-based. You need to answer the question by being
bound within the limits or boundary set by the question on a specific topic. Therefore, a slight change in
wording makes a GP question totally different from the previous one. You are asked to analyze
the situation and build appropriate answer based on it. And you think that it is all about facts when, in
reality, the questions demand your opinions and reasoning. Please understand this. I've written an article on
this matter already.
My advice for you here is: Rely on these predictions at your own risk! Or don't take them as predictions at
all and read just for information.
Rationale of this Article
From what I have said earlier, you may infer that you should not read this article any further. I do not mean
so! If I was to say so, why would I write this article in the first place?
I really want you to read this article. Yea, I really want you to read, not because my predictions will be
correct but because this article can provide you a lot of ideas on the topics listed in syllabus. Also these
questions will help you acquaint yourself with the nature of questions that will be asked in the GP exams.
Another reason I wrote this article is because many students asked me to do so. So, here you are guys. Take
them as probable, not as certain! :D
Probable Areas for Question selection
Assess the impact of nuclear family upon the socialization of children (in your country).
The effects of globalization have been felt far and wide. What is your view?
Has the global financial crisis settled down?
Section 2: Science, including its history, philosophy, general principles and applications;
environmental issues; mathematical topics
Science and Technology
Is science superior to nature?
In the future, there will be more robots than humans. How far do you agree?
Smartphones and the internet technology are jointly changing the way people lead their life. Discuss.
Environment
Is it enough to celebrate World Environment Day only once a year?
Environmental issues have lost importance in the recent years. How far is this true?
Will science ever be able to recover our environment to the state prior to industrial revolution?
Energy
How far will science be successful in inventing a clean energy?
Will it ever be possible to meet the ever growing demand for energy through green energy sources?
Is you country prepared to deal with the exhaustion of fossil fuels?
What are the probable questions (guesses) for the upcoming exams?
The questions of General Paper are asked in such a way to incorporate as many variations possible. For
example, you get questions on all sorts of disciplines such as arts, humanities, anthropology, sociology,
science and technology and so on, ranging from historical events to the most recent happenings. Therefore, it
is not easy to figure out and provide you with some guessings about which question is probable. However
there are some ways you can get helped on this.
You can choose some topics from the syllabus and prepare them for your exams. For example, you can
prepare for some specific sections such as Science and Technology and Arts or any suitable combination for
you. Regardless of the topics, get in touch with the latest news and their environmental and social
implications because whether it is science, arts, or philosophy most of the concerns are for mankind and
therefore, social and environmental contexts are very important in almost all of the areas of human concern.
And you should take care of them most!
Also do not forget to see past papers. They are very useful when it comes to getting better grades. Again
there are two major advantages of solving questions from the past papers. First, is that the questions from
those papers are likely to repeat in the coming exams. If you compare among the past papers of different
years you can find some questions being repeated. Therefore, there is possibility that they can be asked again
in the upcoming exams. Second benefit is that the past papers can give you insights on what types of
questions will be asked in the exams. This will help you become prepared for the exam as well as guess the
probable questions yourself to some extent.
Should every country be given a right to possess weapons of war?
Note: This post is not a complete essay but will help you brainstorm to write one.
In the question like this, it would at first seem that possessing weapons by every country would be
undesirable or even dangerous especially for the proponents (or advocates) of peace and harmony. However,
I would take the side of yes and show you how we can have stronger points from that perspective.
First of all, which body is there to grant or take away the right of the countries to possess weapons? As far as
I know, there is no such body which can dictate which country can possess weapons and which cant. So,
this question in itself is a hypothetical question.
Again if such rights are granted to some nations and prohibited for others wouldn't it be an unfair act?
Obviously and hence such provisions will arise equality issues among the nations. Therefore, only viable
alternatives will be to either allow all nations to possess the weapons or disallow all of them for the same.
Now, if we disallow all of the countries to possess the weaponry again there will be an issue of trust. How
can the countries be sure that the other countries do not secretly possess the arms and ammunition of war?
There is either a difficult way or no way to know this. Therefore, allowing the countries to have weapons
would be a better alternative.
Furthermore, if such rights aren't granted, then there will be a huge debate on who will enforce such law that
prohibits the right to possess weapons. If for example, an individual country took such a position to disallow
other countries in possessing weapons then that country might abuse its power. Again, if the INGOs like the
United Nations took charge of this responsibility then it will still be untrustworthy for all nations because of
the possibility of bias such as favouring one country over another and allowing it to possess weapons. In
other words, such organizations would also not be completely trusted by all nations. So, there will be a huge
debate as the issue is quite sensitive one. Even if they succeed in gaining the trust of all nations and reached
a consensus that no one will produce weaponry, the implementation of this agreement will be skeptical.
LHS GP TIPS AND TRICKS 25
Moreover, such a law becomes an opportunity to nations with evil intentions. While the rest of the world
destroys its weapons, such nations will start to build weapons even more aggressively, to materialize their
evil cause as soon as possible. So, this law will essentially leave a huge security hole. However, more
realistically, even if such consensus is reached and enacted, almost all the countries will secretly further their
weapon research because they assume that other countries are also doing so and that they might pose threat
to them in the future. Therefore, every country should be given the right to own weapons. Granting rights to
produce weapons will not be as much a vice as we think of it. Since, all countries will be investing some of
their resources in weaponry, all will possess weapons. However, no country will be able to estimate the
power of other nations exactly. Because of this reason no country will try to start war with other countries.
However, even if one or two power-obsessed countries try to conquer another country, the entire world will
be polarized against such nations because such countries will be a source of threat to all other countries.
Therefore, they will all support the weaker nations and pressurize the powerful nation to setback. So, there
will ultimately be peace and people will be safer this way. Therefore, by all means, I think that every country
should be given a right to possess the weapons of war.