English precis is an important part of English Grammar and Composition paper for the CSS exam. Candidates who do not do well in precis often fail English Grammar and Composition paper. Candidates are asked to write a precis for a paragraph given by the examiner. There are important rules for English Grammar and Composition. It is very important to have good writing expression for English precis, and it must be grammatically correct.
A student must follow a few rules to write a good precis in English.
Below are Precis from English Grammar and Composition papers of the CSS exams from 2024 to 2016.
In the heart of bustling cities, urban green spaces stand as oases of tranquility, providing respite from the hustle and bustle. Parks, adorned with vibrant flora, become havens for relaxation and recreation. The greenery offers a sanctuary for diverse wildlife, creating a delicate balance between urban development and environmental preservation. Beyond their aesthetic appeal, city parks play a crucial role in fostering community bonds. Families gather for picnics, friends engage in sports, and individuals find solace amidst nature’s embrace. These communal spaces serve as venues for cultural events, open-air concerts, and art installations, enriching the urban experience. The benefits of urban
green spaces extend beyond leisure. They contribute to improved air quality, mitigate the urban heat island effect, and promote overall well-being. Access to nature within city limits becomes a vital aspect of mental health, offering a refuge for introspection and rejuvenation. However, the challenge lies in balancing the increasing urbanization with the preservation of green spaces. Sustainable urban planning becomes imperative to ensure the coexistence of concrete jungles and natural havens. Efforts to create and maintain parks, tree-lined avenues, and green rooftops become integral components of shaping cities that prioritize both human and environmental health. As cities evolve, the preservation and enhancement of urban green spaces become a shared responsibility. The vision is to cultivate urban landscapes that seamlessly integrate nature into the tapestry of city life, fostering a sustainable and harmonious cohabitation between human progress and the environment.
On the question of freedom in education, there are at present three main schools of thought, deriving partly from differences as to ends and partly from differences in psychological theory. There are those who say that children should be completely free, however bad they may be; there are those who say they should be completely subject to authority, however good they may be; and there are those who say they should be free, but in spite on freedom they should be always good. This last party is larger than it has any logical right to be; children, like adults, will not all be virtuous if they are all free. The belief that liberty will ensure moral perfection is a relic of Rousseauism and would not survive a study of animals and babies. Those who hold this belief think that education should have no positive purpose but should merely offer an environment suitable for spontaneous development. I cannot agree with this school, which seems to me too individualistic and unduly indifferent to the importance of knowledge. We live in communities which require cooperation, and it would be utopian to expect all the necessary cooperation to result from spontaneous impulse. The existence of a large population on a limited area is only possible owing to science and technique; education must, therefore, hand on the necessary minimum of these. The educators who allow most freedom are men whose success depends upon a degree of benevolence, self-control, and trained intelligence, which can hardly be generated where every impulse is left unchecked; their merits, therefore, are not likely to be perpetuated if their methods are undiluted. Education, viewed from a social standpoint, must be something more positive than a mere opportunity for growth. It must, of course, provide this, but it must also provide a mental and moral equipment which children cannot acquire entirely for themselves.
The fear of human beings when faced with the mysteries of life and their weakness by comparison with the vastness of nature created in them a need to communicate with the divine, with the superior powers which they believed regulated the universe and determined their own fates. Knowledge of wishes of the gods was always a sure guide for human behavior. In ancient Greece, the precise nature of these wishes was ‘decoded’ by the art of giving oracles, practiced by soothsayers who had the gift of understanding the signs or signals sent by the gods.
The soothsayers uttered their oracles by interpreting flashes of lightening, rolls of thunder or the flights of certain birds of prey (omens); alternatively, they might observe the direction in which the fire burned when a sacrifice was made, examine the entrails of animals which had just been sacrificed, or base judgments on the sacrificial beast’s willingness to approach the altar. The interpretation of dreams was popular too, and so was palmistry. The most notable soothsayers of ancient Greece were Tiresias, Calchas, Helenus, Amphiaraus and Cassandra.
However, there were abundant instances in which the gods did not manifest themselves to the faithful in the forms of signs but spoke directly to an intermediate who for a short time was overcome by a ‘divine mania’ and transcended his own human essence. Here the prophet- or more usually the prophetess- entered a state of ecstasy in which he or she delivered the message from the gods to the suppliants.
These practices for foreseeing the future were the basis on which the ancient Greek oracles operated. Each oracle was located within a properly-organized sanctuary and was directly associated with one or other of the gods. Apollo was the archetypal soothsayer for the Greeks, the god who was responsible for conveying to mortals the decisions pronounced by Zeus. The most important of all the oracles, that at the Delphi, delivered the messages with the intervention of Apollo, while the oldest that of Dodona, functioned with the assistance of Zeus.
Nizar Hassan was born in 1960 and raised in the village of Mashhad, near Nazareth, where he has lived with his family. He studied anthropology at Haifa University and after graduating worked in TV. Starting in 1990, he turned to cinema. In 1994, he produced Independence, in which he pokes his Palestinian interlocutors about what they think of the bizarre Israeli notion of their “independence”. They have stolen another people’s homeland and call the act “independence”! Hassan dwells on that absurdity.
As the world’s attention was captured by the news of Israel planning to “annex” yet a bit more of Palestine and add it to what they have already stolen, I received an email from Nizar Hassan, the pre-eminent Palestinian documentary filmmaker. He wrote to me about his latest film, My Grandfather’s Path, and included a link to the director’s cut. It was a blessing. They say choose your enemies carefully for you would end up like them. The same goes for those opposing Zionist settler colonialists. If you are too incensed and angered by their daily dose of claptrap, the vulgarity of their armed robbery of Palestine, you would soon become like them and forget yourself and what beautiful ideas, ideals, and aspirations once animated your highest dreams. Never fall into that trap. For decades, aspects of Palestinian and world cinema, art, poetry, fiction, and drama have done for me precisely that: saved me from that trap. They have constantly reminded me what all our politics are about – a moment of poetic salvation from it all.
Nizar Hassan’s new documentary is one such work – in a moment of dejection over Israel’s encroachment on Palestinian rights and the world’s complicity, it has put Palestine in perspective. The film is mercifully long, beautifully paced and patient, a masterfully crafted work of art – a Palestinian’s epic ode to his homeland. A shorter version of My Grandfather’s Path has been broadcast on Al Jazeera Arabic in three parts, but it must be seen in its entirety, in one go. It is a pilgrimage that must not be interrupted.
Manto was a victim of some kind of social ambivalence that converged on self-righteousness, hypocrisy, and mental obtuseness. His detractors branded him as vulgar and obscene and implicated him into a long-dawn legal battle questioning the moral validity of his writings. Without being deterred by their negative tactics, he remained firm in his commitment to exploring the stark realities of life offensive to the conservative taste of some self-styled purists. In the line of Freud, he sought to unravel the mysteries of sex not in an abstract, non-earthly manner but in a palpable, fleshy permutation signifying his deep concern for the socially disabled and depressed classes of society, like petty wage-earners, pimps, and prostitutes.
For Manto, man is neither an angel nor a devil, but a mix of both. His middle and lower middle class characters think, feel and act like human beings. Without feigning virtuosity, he was able to strike a rapport with his readers on some of the most vital socio moral issues concerning them. As a realist, he was fully conscious of the yawning gap between appearance and reality; in fact, nothing vexed him more than a demonstrable duality in human behaviour at different levels of the social hierarchy. He had an unjaundiced view of man’s faults and follies. As a literary artist, he treated vulgarity discreetly — without ever sounding vulgar in the process. Like Joyce, Lawrence, and Caldwell, in Manto’s work too, men and women of the age find their own restlessness accurately mirrored. And like them, Manto was also ‘raised above his own self by his sombre enthusiasm’.
I think modern educational theorists are inclined to attach too much importance to the negative virtue of not interfering with children, and too little to the positive merit of enjoying their company. If you have the sort of liking for children that many people have for horses or dogs, they will be apt to respond to your suggestions, and to accept prohibitions, perhaps with some good-humoured grumbling, but without resentment. It is no use to have the sort of liking that consists in regarding them as a field for valuable social endeavour, or what amounts to the same thing as an outlet for power-impulses. No child will be grateful for an interest in him that springs from the thought that he will have a vote to be secured for your party or a body to be sacrificed to king and country. The desirable sort of interest is that which consists in spontaneous pleasure in the presence of children, without any ulterior purpose. Teachers who have this quality will seldom need to interfere with children’s freedom, but will be able to do so, when necessary, without causing psychological damage.
Unfortunately, it is utterly impossible for over-worked teachers to preserve an instinctive liking for children; they are bound to come to feel towards them as the proverbial confectioner’s apprentice does towards macaroons. I do not think that education ought to be anyone’s whole profession: it should be undertaken for at most two hours a day by people whose remaining hours are spent away from children. The society of the young is fatiguing, especially when strict discipline is avoided. Fatigue, in the end, produces irritation, which is likely to express itself somehow, whatever theories the harassed teacher may have taught himself or herself to believe. The necessary friendliness cannot be
preserved by self-control alone. But where it exists, it should be unnecessary to have rules in advance as to how “naughty” children are to be treated, since impulse is likely to lead to the right decision, and almost any decision will be right if the child feels that you like him. No rules, however wise, are a substitute for affection and tact.
It is in the temperate countries of northern Europe that the beneficial effects of cold are most manifest. A cold climate seems to stimulate energy by acting as an obstacle. In the face of an insuperable obstacle our energies are numbed by despair; the total absence of obstacles, on the other hand leaves no room for the exercise and training of energy; but a struggle against difficulties that we have a fair hope of over-coming, calls into active operation all our powers. In like manner, while intense cold numbs human energies, and a hot climate affords little motive for exertion, moderate cold seems to have a bracing effect on the human race. In a moderately cold climate man is engaged in an arduous, but no
hopeless struggles and with the inclemency of the weather. He has to build strong houses and procure thick clothes to keep himself warm. To supply fuel for his fires, he must hew down trees and dig coal out of the earth. In the open air, unless he moves quickly, he will suffer pain from the biting wind. Finally, in order to replenish the expenditure of bodily tissue caused by his necessary exertions, he has to procure for himself plenty of nourishing food.
Quite different is the lot of man in the tropics. In the neighbourhood of the equator there is little need of clothes or fire, and it is possible with perfect comfort and no danger to health, to pass the livelong day stretched out on the bare ground beneath the shade of a tree. A very little fruit or vegetable food is required to sustain life under such circumstances, and that little can be obtained without much exertion from the bounteous earth.
We may recognize must the same difference between ourselves at different seasons of the year, as there is between human nature in the tropics and in temperate climes. In hot weather we are generally languid and inclined to take life easily; but when the cold season comes, we find that we are more inclined to vigorous exertion of our minds and bodies.
All the evils in this world are brought about by the persons who are always up and doing, but do not know when they ought to be up nor what they ought to be doing. The devil, I take it, is still the busiest creature in the universe, and I can quite imagine him denouncing laziness and becoming angry at the smallest waste of time. In his kingdom, I will wager, nobody is allowed to do nothing, not even for a single afternoon. The world, we all freely admit, is in a muddle but I for one do not think that it is laziness that has brought it to such a pass. It is not the active virtues that it lacks but the passive ones; it is capable of anything but kindness and a little steady thought. There is still plenty of energy in the
world (there never were more fussy people about), but most of it is simply misdirected. If, for example, in July 1914, when there was some capital idling weather, everybody, emperors, Kings, arch dukes, statesmen, generals, journalists, had been suddenly smitten with an intense desire to do nothing, just to hang about in the sunshine and consume tobacco, then we should all have been much better off than we are now. But no, the doctrine of the strenuous life still went unchallenged; there must be no time wasted; something must be done. Again, suppose our statesmen, instead of rushing off to Versailles with a bundle of ill-digested notions and great deal of energy to dissipate had all taken a fortnight off, away from all correspondence and interviews and what not, and had simply lounged about on some hillside or other apparently doing nothing for the first time in their energetic lives, then they might have gone to their so-called peace conference and come away again with their reputations still unsoiled and the affairs of the world in good trim. Even at the present time, if half of the politicians in Europe would relinquish the notion that laziness is crime and go away and do nothing for a little space, we should certainly gain by it. Other examples come crowding into mind. Thus, every now and then, certain religious sects hold conferences; but though there are evils abroad that are mountains high, though the fate of civilization is still doubtful, the members who attend these conferences spend their time condemning the length of ladies’ skirts and the noisiness of dance bands. They would all be better employed lying flat on their backs somewhere, staring at the sky and recovering their mental health.
During my vacation last May, I had a hard time choosing a tour. Flights to Japan, Hong Kong and Australia are just too common. What I wanted was somewhere exciting and exotic, a place where I could be spared from the holiday tour crowds. I was so happy when John called up, suggesting a trip to Cherokee, a county in the state of Oklahoma. I agreed and went off with the preparation immediately.
We took a flight to Cherokee and visited a town called Qualla Boundary surrounded by magnificent mountain scenery, the town painted a paradise before us. With its Oconaluftee Indian Village reproducing tribal crafts and lifestyles of the 18th century and the outdoor historical pageant Unto These Hills playing six times weekly in the summer nights, Qualla Boundary tries to present a brief image of the Cherokee past to the tourists.
Despite the language barrier, we managed to find our way to the souvenir shops with the help of the natives. The shops were filled with rubber tomahawks and colorful traditional war bonnets, made of dyed turkey feathers. Tepees, cone shaped tents made from animal skin, were also pitched near the shops. “Welcome! Want to get anything?” We looked up and saw a middle-aged man smiling at us. We were very surprised by his fluent English. He introduced himself as George and we ended up chatting till lunch time when he invited us for lunch at a nearby coffee shop.
“Sometimes, I’ve to work from morning to sunset during the tour season. Anyway, this is still better off than being a woodcutter …” Remembrance weighed heavy on George’s mind and he went on to tell us that he used to cut firewood for a living but could hardly make ends meet. We learnt from him that the Cherokees do not depend solely on trade for survival. During the tour off-peak period, the tribe would have to try out other means for income. One of the successful ways is the “Bingo Weekend”. On the Friday afternoons of the Bingo weekends, a large bingo hall was opened, attracting huge crowds of people to the various kinds of games like the Super Jackpot and the Warrior Game Special. According to George, these forms of entertainment fetch them great returns.
Our final stop in Qualla Boundary was at the museum where arts, ranging from the simple hand-woven oak baskets to wood and stone carvings of wolves, ravens and other symbols of Cherokee cosmology are displayed.
Back at home, I really missed the place and I would of course look forward to the next trip to another exotic place.