Essay map
Opening scene
Anecdote
A district collector walks a flood bank at dusk and ‘knows’ the village will go under before the model says so. She still opens the rainfall sheet. The order that follows is neither a hunch nor a printout. The line names that crossing: intuition and logic.
Keep this in every paragraph
One stand
Vision is not a slogan on a hoarding. It is a felt pattern that survives a check. Write to honour both the inner alarm and the second instrument.
Use once, in a scene — do not dump names
Quotes to earn
-
Gandhi
Inner voice after experiment — intuition as trained conscience, not a whim.
-
Kahneman
Fast and slow thought — name the two clocks, then leave the textbook.
Turn each heading into a full paragraph in the hall
Heading map
What the line is asking
- Intuition: trained pattern, not magic — a nurse’s eye, a farmer’s sky, Gandhi’s inner voice after years of practice.
- Logic: models, law, cost, a chain of reasons that another person can walk.
- Intersection: where they correct each other.
Self
- First impression is often caste and class dressed as instinct. Logic is the bleach.
- Courage without a map is also not vision.
Science and design
- Hypothesis is intuition; trial is logic. ISRO’s windows combine both.
- Kahneman: fast and slow — use once, then return to the flood bank.
State
- A reform that only ‘feels right’ can break a queue. A reform that only models GDP can miss a hunger week.
- Peg: 1991 — numbers met political nerve. A farm law without the street was logic without the room.
Markets and tech
- An algorithm is frozen intuition of its makers. Audit is the logic we owe the user.
The counter
Some clocks cannot wait for a perfect model (a missing child). Some hunches must never move a file (a communal rumour). The intersection is a discipline, not a 50–50 slogan.
Drop one peg where it fits — not a data dump
Value addition
- ISRO A launch window: craft plus calculation.
- 1991 reforms Fiscal logic meeting political nerve — and still a human bill to pay.
- Reasoned order Administrative law: intuition must still walk as reasons another can read.
Last 8–10 lines in the exam
Last paragraph
- Close: feel the bank, open the sheet, sign with reasons. Expand in the hall — this is only the map.
Quick related
Students also ask
-
Not all who wander are lost.
Next question in the 2023 paper (Q3). View answer →
-
Is this the full essay?
No. It is a map. Give one hunch that was right and one that was prejudice.
-
Tone?
Practical. Examiners punish ‘follow your heart’ as the whole policy.
PYQ trend
When UPSC asked this
Related PYQs from other years, newest first. Open a question to read it.
-
2023 · Q1 · Essay · 125 marks
Thinking is like a game, it does not begin unless there is an opposite team. -
2023 · Q3 · Essay · 125 marks
Not all who wander are lost. -
2023 · Q4 · Essay · 125 marks
Inspiration for creativity springs from the effort to look for the magical in the mundane. -
2023 · Q5 · Essay · 125 marks
Girls are weighed down by restrictions, boys with demands - two equally harmful disciplines. -
2023 · Q6 · Essay · 125 marks
Mathematics is the music of reason. -
2023 · Q7 · Essay · 125 marks
A society that has more justice is a society that needs less charity. -
2023 · Q8 · Essay · 125 marks
Education is what remains after one has forgotten what one has learned in school. -
2022 · Q1 · Essay · 125 marks
Forests are the best case studies for economic excellence.
More from this paper
Q1 · UPSC Mains 2023 · Essay · 125 marks
Thinking is like a game, it does not begin unless there is an opposite team.
Philosophical and ethical quotes
Not a full essay — a map. Open with an empty chess chair. Stand: thought needs a worthy opposite. Headings: self, lab, democracy, world, then one counter. Earn Mill or Ambedkar once. Peg Assembly debates, not a dump. Close on argument as a public good.
Q3 · UPSC Mains 2023 · Essay · 125 marks
Not all who wander are lost.
Philosophical and ethical quotes
Not a full essay — a map. Open with a coaching-town exit that becomes wells. Stand: search vs exile. Headings: self, knowledge, migration, state, then one counter. Earn Tolkien once; Gandhi or Tagore once. Peg Art. 21 or FRA. Close on a compass.
Q4 · UPSC Mains 2023 · Essay · 125 marks
Inspiration for creativity springs from the effort to look for the magical in the mundane.
Philosophical and ethical quotes
Not a full essay — a map. Open with a mid-day meal cook and a later play. Stand: attention is the spring. Headings: art, science, state, repair, then one counter. Earn Tagore once. Peg UPI or a PHC. Close on looking twice.
Toppers' copies
Toppers' copies for this question will be uploaded soon.