The essay paper: what FPSC asks for and how it is marked

What you will be able to do

By the end of this lesson you will know exactly what the essay paper asks of you, in FPSC’s own words and in plain ones. You will know why this one paper can end a whole attempt at CSS, and what the examiners say goes wrong in the scripts they fail. You will also know how many words a minute you must write, and how to test your own speed.

1. Look at this first

This is the top of the real essay paper of 2026, copied exactly as FPSC printed it. The ten titles came below it.¹

TIME ALLOWED: THREE HOURS   MAXIMUM MARKS = 100

NOTE: (i) Prepare an outline and write a comprehensive essay (2500 – 3000 words) on any one of the given topics. You are expected to comprehend the subject issue correctly and articulate your stance with valid arguments and clear ideas duly supported by relevant data and examples. Your articulation, expression and technical treatment of the English Essay will be examined.

(ii) Must write Q. No. in the Answer Book in accordance with Q. No. in the Q. Paper.

(iii) No Page/Space be left blank between the answers. All the blank pages of Answer Book must be crossed.

(iv) Extra attempt of any question or any part of the attempted question will not be considered.

Read it slowly, with a pen in your hand. Every time the note asks you to do something, make a mark. Then count your marks before you read on.

There are more than ten demands in it. Some hide inside one long sentence. “Valid arguments” and “clear ideas” are two separate demands. Many candidates read this note once, in a hurry, in the hall. This lesson makes sure you know it well before then.

2. The idea in plain words

Almost everything in this course comes out of this short note. Let us take it one piece at a time.

What the note asks of you

The paper prints ten titles and you write on one. You do not get extra marks for a hard title, and you lose nothing by leaving a title you do not understand. The lesson on choosing your title shows how to pick the one you can prove best.

Before the essay you write an outline, its plan, on the first pages of your answer book. The examiner reads this plan before anything else, so it is the first impression of your mind. The part of this course called “The outline” teaches it step by step.

The essay runs to 2,500 to 3,000 words. An essay well below 2,500 words looks unfinished. An essay that reaches 3,000 words by repeating itself or by adding things the title did not ask for does not earn more.

“Comprehend the subject issue correctly” means understand what the title is really asking before you write a line. A title on the youth bulge is not asking you to describe young people. It is asking whether Pakistan’s large young population will make it richer or poorer, and what decides that. The part called “Reading the title” is about this.

“Articulate your stance” means say clearly what you think. Your stance is your answer to the title, the one sentence the lesson on what an essay is called the thesis. An essay with no stance is a report, however much it knows.

“Valid arguments and clear ideas” means your reasons must really lead to your answer, and each one must be easy to follow. A reason that sounds good but does not prove anything is not a valid argument.

“Duly supported by relevant data and examples” means every reason needs proof the reader could check, such as a figure, a named case, a law or an event. “Relevant” means the proof must be about this title and this point, not any fact you happen to remember.

“Articulation, expression and technical treatment” are the three things your writing is marked on. Articulation is saying a thought so the reader gets exactly what you meant. Expression is the English itself, which means grammar, the right word, spelling and punctuation. Technical treatment is the craft of the essay, which means the outline, the introduction, the body, the conclusion, and how they hold together. The same three words are in FPSC’s syllabus for this paper.³

The rest of the note is about the answer book. Write the question number of your title exactly as it is on the paper. Leave no blank page between parts, and cross out every blank page at the end. Write one essay only. FPSC’s rules say an over-attempted question “shall not be evaluated and credited”,⁴ so a second essay written “to be safe” earns nothing and costs you the time it took.

You may practise on older papers, and their note is a little different. From 2016 to 2025 it asked you to “use different forms of discourses, e.g. exposition, argumentation, description and narration” and said “Credit will be given for organization, relevance and clarity.”² The 2026 note asks for the same kind of essay in plainer terms. Organization, relevance and clarity still decide your marks, because an essay without them cannot show a stance, valid arguments or clear ideas.

Why this one paper decides so much

The essay is one of six compulsory papers, each of 100 marks. FPSC’s rules say that a candidate who scores less than 40 percent in any compulsory paper has failed the written examination.⁴ So 39 out of 100 in the essay ends your attempt, however well you did in every other paper. You do not go on to the interview. Your other marks do not rescue you.

So the essay deserves more of your time than its 100 marks suggest. It is a gate, and nothing else counts until you are through it.

How many candidates fail it

Figure 1 shows what share of candidates failed the essay paper, year by year.

In 2022, 19,440 candidates sat this paper and only 220 passed.⁵ These are graduates, many of them hard-working and clever, so something other than ability is going wrong.

What the examiners say goes wrong

After each exam, FPSC’s examiners write down what they saw in the scripts. The table puts their words beside what they mean and the part of this course that fixes each one.

Look down the middle column. Only one row is about English. Every other row is about thinking. It is about understanding the title, finding an answer, giving reasons and proof, and keeping to a plan. Even the English row names simple mistakes, such as a verb that does not agree with its subject. Nobody failed for not knowing enough long words.

This is good news. Thinking clearly is a skill, and a skill is learned in small steps, which is what this course does. The examiner also reads your outline and introduction first, so most of a mark is decided early, and this course spends a lot of time on those pages.

3. Do it with me

Now let us turn the note into something you can use. Keep a notebook beside you, and do each step yourself before you read mine.

Step 1. Turn the note into a checklist. Write the note’s demands as short questions you can ask of your own essay. Use your own words. Stop and write yours now.

Here is mine. Yours may be worded differently, and that is fine if it covers the same things.

1. Did I write on one title only, with its number as on the paper?
2. Did I write an outline before the essay?
3. Did I answer what the title really asks?
4. Can someone find my answer in one sentence?
5. Does every reason really lead to my answer?
6. Does every reason have a fact or example under it?
7. Is every fact about this title and this point?
8. Is my English correct, sentence by sentence?
9. Does the essay keep every promise of the outline?
10. Is it between 2,500 and 3,000 words?
11. Did I cross out the blank pages?

Keep it at the back of your notebook. It will grow as you go through the course.

Step 2. Do the time sums. You have 180 minutes. You will need time to choose a title and make an outline before you write, and time to read your essay through at the end. The lesson on the three hours shows a full plan. For now, say you take 40 minutes to plan and 15 to check. How many minutes are left for writing, and how many words must you write in each of them? Work it out before reading on.

180 − 40 − 15 = 125 minutes of writing. For 2,500 words that is 2,500 ÷ 125 = 20 words a minute. For 3,000 words it is 24 words a minute. That pace, kept up for two hours, leaves no time to stop and think about what comes next. So the thinking has to be done in the outline, which is the real reason the outline comes first.

Step 3. Read the anchor title against the note. Take the title we follow through this course, “Youth Bulge: a demographic dividend or a demographic bomb?” Go through three of the note’s demands and write what each means for this title.

• Comprehend the subject issue correctly. The title is not asking what a youth bulge is. It asks whether Pakistan’s large number of young people will make the country richer or become a burden, and so what decides which one happens.
• Articulate your stance. You must choose. The writer of Piece B in the lesson on what an essay is said the bulge will pay only if schooling and jobs keep pace, and they are not keeping pace. That is a stance.
• Supported by relevant data and examples. Figures on young people, schooling and jobs in Pakistan, and examples of countries where a young population did or did not pay off. A list of youth programmes, with no point made about them, would not be relevant support.

Step 4. Hold the examiners’ complaints against a piece of writing. Go back to Piece A in the lesson on what an essay is. Which complaints from the table would an examiner write about it? Decide before reading on.

Piece A is a report, so the 2018 complaint fits first. It takes no stance, so its ideas do not lead anywhere, which is the “random” ideas of 2016. It gives no figure or named case, so nothing is “substantiated with facts”. Its English is fine. So Piece A would fail on thinking, not on language, which is exactly the pattern the examiners describe.

4. Now you

Try each exercise on paper before you open the answer.

Exercise 1. Say each phrase from the note in your own plain words, in one sentence each. (a) comprehend the subject issue correctly; (b) articulate your stance; (c) valid arguments; (d) relevant data; (e) technical treatment of the English Essay.

Exercise 2. Bilal finishes his essay on title 3 with forty minutes to spare. To be safe, he writes half an essay on title 7 as well. What happens to the second essay, and what should he have done with those forty minutes?

Exercise 3. Suppose you take 30 minutes to plan and 10 minutes to check. How many words a minute must you write to reach 2,500 words, and to reach 3,000?

Exercise 4. Test your own speed. Set a timer for five minutes. Write about the anchor title, by hand, as you would in the exam, without stopping to make it perfect. Then count your words and divide by five. Is your speed above or below 20 words a minute?

Exercise 5. A candidate chooses “Local Government System: the missing link in Pakistan’s governance structure.” They write 1,500 words on the history of local government in Pakistan, one system after another, and then a short conclusion. Which complaint from the examiners’ table would this draw, and why?

Exercise 6. This one goes back to the lesson on what an essay is. Which part of an essay answers the note’s demand to “articulate your stance”, and where does it usually go?

5. What usually goes wrong

1. Reaching for big words and losing the small ones. Here is a sentence of the kind examiners see every year.

   The youth bulge is a multifarious conundrum which have many dimensions.

   It tries to impress, and it breaks the very rule the 2023 examiners named first among the language errors, because “conundrum … have” should be “conundrum … has”. It also says nothing an examiner can mark. The repair is plainer and says more.

   The youth bulge raises two separate problems, too few jobs and too little learning.

   Use a hard word only when you are sure of it and it says something a plain word cannot.

2. Making the essay long with things the title did not ask for. A candidate writing on the youth bulge spends a page on every census since 1951, year by year. It is all true, and almost none of it answers the title. The repair is to keep only what proves a point. One sentence is enough here. “Pakistan’s population grew from 207.68 million in 2017 to 241.49 million in 2023.”⁷ It shows how fast the numbers are rising, which is what the title is about. The page of dates only filled space.

3. An outline the essay does not follow. The outline promises “IV. Brain drain takes the best-trained young abroad”. The essay never mentions brain drain. The examiner, who read the outline first, notices at once. If you change your mind while writing, you have two honest choices. Write the paragraph you promised, or strike the point out of the outline with one neat line. Never leave a promise you did not keep.

4. Writing a second essay, or the wrong question number. As Exercise 2 showed, the second essay is not marked. Write the number of your title exactly as it is printed, and cross out every blank page before you hand in. These are the easiest marks of care to keep.