Composition: a précis fifty words too long and a letter with the wrong format
The Composition section offers a précis and a formal letter, 15 marks in all, and you have twenty minutes left. The passage for précis runs to about 300 words and the instruction says: 'Make a précis to about one-third of the passage and give a suitable title.' Your draft is 150 words: it keeps the opening example of the 1978 flood, keeps the closing metaphor of a leaking roof, and copies two sentences almost word for word from the passage. Your letter, to the Editor of a local daily about irregular water supply in your mohalla, opens 'Respected Sir, I am fine here and hope the same there', gives the subject line after the salutation, ends with 'Yours lovingly', and has no sender's address. You know the letter is worth 5 marks and the précis 10, and you cannot rewrite both properly in the time left.
1. Decide what to cut from the précis, in what order, to reach the limit, and name the précis rule that justifies each cut.
Read the worked answer
Target: one-third of 300 = about 100 words, with a working tolerance of roughly ±5 words. At 150 words you are 50 over, so half the draft must go.
Cut in this order:
- The 1978 example first. A précis reproduces the argument, never the illustrations. Examples are the first thing a condenser drops, because the general point survives without them.
- The leaking-roof metaphor next. Figures of speech must either be replaced by a plain statement or dropped. Keeping the image costs words and adds nothing to the argument.
- The two copied sentences must be rewritten, not merely shortened. A précis must be in your own words; copying is not condensation, and examiners deduct for lifted sentences even when the word count is right.
- Then trim adjectives, adverbs and repeated connectives - the last 10–15 words usually come from here.
What must stay: the main idea of every paragraph, the logical links between them (cause, contrast, conclusion), and the writer's stance. A précis that keeps the argument but loses the roof metaphor is a good précis; one that keeps the roof and loses a paragraph is not.
2. Rank the faults in the letter by how many marks each is likely to cost, and rewrite the two costliest lines.
Read the worked answer
Ranked by cost:
- Missing sender's address - a format mark, and it is all-or-nothing.
- 'Yours lovingly' after 'Dear/Respected Sir' - a subscription–salutation mismatch, the single most visible register error in a formal letter.
- 'I am fine here and hope the same there' - irrelevant personal enquiry in a letter to an editor; it signals that you have learnt letter-writing from personal correspondence.
- Subject line after the salutation - in the format taught for Indian board papers the subject comes before the salutation; a small deduction at most.
- 'Respected Sir' - accepted in Indian usage, but 'Dear Sir' is the safer formal choice and matches 'Yours faithfully'.
Rewrite of the two costliest lines:
- Address block at the top: 'Examination Hall / Patna, 800001 / 12 February 20XX' followed by 'The Editor, The Daily ... , Patna'.
- Subscription: 'Yours faithfully,' followed by your name - because 'Dear Sir / Respected Sir' pairs with 'Yours faithfully', while 'Yours lovingly' or 'Yours affectionately' belong to relatives.
3. You cannot perfect both tasks. How do you divide the twenty minutes, and what does the mark-to-minute ratio tell you?
Read the worked answer
Rough plan: 5 minutes on the letter, 13 on the précis, 2 on a final check.
Reasoning from marks per minute: the letter is worth 5 marks and its losses are almost entirely format, which is fixable in a few minutes - an address block, the subject line moved up, one sentence deleted, the subscription changed. That is perhaps 3 marks recovered in 5 minutes. The précis is worth 10 marks, and the losses are structural (50 extra words, copied sentences, retained examples), so it cannot be rescued in five minutes; but 13 minutes is enough to strip the example and the metaphor, rewrite two sentences and land near 100 words.
So the rule is: spend time first where the marks per minute are highest, then where the marks at stake are highest. The letter wins on the first test, the précis on the second - and a two-minute check at the end protects both, because word counts and format slips are exactly what gets missed under time pressure.