❌ ChatGPT tends to write stagnant essays. It keeps proving the quote again and again without allowing the essay to evolve along a meaningful arc, much like many aspirants do. It’s just that ChatGPT does it in a fancier way.
❌ ChatGPT leans toward creative writing, whereas a UPSC essay demands substantive writing. It often writes like those aspirants who believe good English automatically translates into a good essay. It doesn’t.
❌ A good essay written by a human usually has far greater smoothness and organic continuity than a ChatGPT-generated one.
And before someone says, “Oh, it’s all about the quality of the prompt,” let me remind you of the inherent limitation of LLMs: their finite context windows. It limits long-range coherence and argumentative evolution.
That said, I strongly encourage you to use AI to improve your essay, not to write it. You can, and should, take help for anecdotes, examples, stuck arguments, literary devices etc. Not while writing essay but before or after it. It is a powerful tool, and ignoring it would be naive. Your competition is using it.
But remember this: the aim of essay practice is to enhance your ability to think and express. That ability grows through an obsession with the process, not the outcome.
Force your brain to think in abstract.
Your brain is capable of being far more creative and argumentative than an average GPT-generated essay. You just don’t know it yet.
“Neither a lofty degree of intelligence nor imagination, nor both together go to the making of a genius. Love, love, love, that is the soul of genius.”
Here are two different ways of writing an anecdote conveying the same idea.
Which one do you like more ?
The first one clearly works better. Why? It uses the technique of micro-narrative.
The first one ties the idea to a specific event and personality commanding the reader’s attention. The identification of victim also arouses emotions in the reader. It humanises the information.
Saying “a horse was walking towards a tree” informs, but saying “a brown horse walked towards the banyan tree” ignites imagination.
The real skill, however, lies in brevity. Both anecdotes are of the same length, yet the first carries more substance.
This is why micro-narratives are so effective, especially in anecdotes.
Religion is not the absence of reason, but a belief beyond its limits.
Atheism is not the absence of belief, but the belief in absence.
This is why some people experience phases of atheism and religiosity, because both are shaped by not rationality, but emotions, beliefs and lived experiences.
Therefore, debates about God mostly remain unresolved because “heart has it’s reasons which reason knows nothing of”.
Also, such debates are hardly about God. They are, at the core, about authority, morality, meaning and the limits of human judgment.
(Having only superficially skimmed the Akhtar–Mufti debate, it didn’t achieve resolution because it cannot, but it set an example of civility in disagreement.)
When an interviewer asks, “If I visit your state for three days, where would you take me?”
Have a solid itinerary ready: not just famous monuments, but small cultural experiences like a local market, a craft village, a food street, a sunset point only locals know. This shows you’re rooted.
But the finest way to end this answer is:
“…and on the last evening, Ma’am/Sir, I’d love to host you for a simple home-cooked dinner with my family.”
Your plan shows your knowledge. Your closing shows your heart.
Moral of the story: In any room, information can impress the mind but warmth is what ultimately wins the heart.
We belong to a world that often encourages erasure of identity in the name of progress.
Anglicise your name. Tone down your rituals. Don’t speak in your regional accent.
And yet, irony persists: an Indian American may perfect the most neutral accent in the room and still be introduced as “the brown doctor.”
While an actress like Priyanka Chopra who did not soften her Indianness to blend in, rather sharpened it to stand out. That is the trap. What you bury becomes a weapon others can use against you. What you accept becomes your armour.
And once you carry your identity with pride, no one else can carry them against you.
Each time we celebrate a festival, we momentarily dissolve our individuality into something larger than the self. Something that’s not about personal interests and wins, but about the shared values that a community cherishes.
It’s not logic, it’s a cultural anchor. By learning the litttle rituals, we keep alive a chain that connects the generations before us to the generations after us.
And Diwali is the jewel among them all. So let’s not be a bore. Go, celebrate and keep the chain alive.
Akshita singh baghel
Mistakes in ChatGPT’s essays:
❌ ChatGPT tends to write stagnant essays. It keeps proving the quote again and again without allowing the essay to evolve along a meaningful arc, much like many aspirants do. It’s just that ChatGPT does it in a fancier way.
❌ ChatGPT leans toward creative writing, whereas a UPSC essay demands substantive writing. It often writes like those aspirants who believe good English automatically translates into a good essay. It doesn’t.
❌ A good essay written by a human usually has far greater smoothness and organic continuity than a ChatGPT-generated one.
And before someone says, “Oh, it’s all about the quality of the prompt,” let me remind you of the inherent limitation of LLMs: their finite context windows. It limits long-range coherence and argumentative evolution.
That said, I strongly encourage you to use AI to improve your essay, not to write it. You can, and should, take help for anecdotes, examples, stuck arguments, literary devices etc. Not while writing essay but before or after it. It is a powerful tool, and ignoring it would be naive. Your competition is using it.
But remember this: the aim of essay practice is to enhance your ability to think and express. That ability grows through an obsession with the process, not the outcome.
Force your brain to think in abstract.
Your brain is capable of being far more creative and argumentative than an average GPT-generated essay.
You just don’t know it yet.
Tg channel: t.me/UPSCwithAkshita
4 days ago (edited) | [YT] | 21
View 1 reply
Akshita singh baghel
“Neither a lofty degree of intelligence nor imagination, nor both together go to the making of a genius. Love, love, love, that is the soul of genius.”
Cannot agree more with Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart.
1 week ago | [YT] | 16
View 2 replies
Akshita singh baghel
History remembers the flame not for what it burnt, but for what it illuminated.
Theme: Sacrifice
Tg channel: t.me/UPSCwithAkshita
1 week ago | [YT] | 42
View 6 replies
Akshita singh baghel
Oh, to weave words like letters to Theo! Oh, to pour colors like the Starry Night! Oh, to be Vincent van Gogh!
Theme: Risk and courage
If you can roughly recall famous excerpts like these, they always make for a very powerful conclusion.
Some other famous excerpts include ‘The man in the arena’ by Theodore Roosevelt and ‘When you come out of the storm’ by Haruki Murakami.
1 week ago | [YT] | 42
View 13 replies
Akshita singh baghel
Here are two different ways of writing an anecdote conveying the same idea.
Which one do you like more ?
The first one clearly works better. Why? It uses the technique of micro-narrative.
The first one ties the idea to a specific event and personality commanding the reader’s attention. The identification of victim also arouses emotions in the reader. It humanises the information.
Saying “a horse was walking towards a tree” informs, but saying “a brown horse walked towards the banyan tree” ignites imagination.
The real skill, however, lies in brevity. Both anecdotes are of the same length, yet the first carries more substance.
This is why micro-narratives are so effective, especially in anecdotes.
1 month ago | [YT] | 70
View 8 replies
Akshita singh baghel
Religion is not the absence of reason, but a belief beyond its limits.
Atheism is not the absence of belief, but the belief in absence.
This is why some people experience phases of atheism and religiosity, because both are shaped by not rationality, but emotions, beliefs and lived experiences.
Therefore, debates about God mostly remain unresolved because “heart has it’s reasons which reason knows nothing of”.
Also, such debates are hardly about God. They are, at the core, about authority, morality, meaning and the limits of human judgment.
(Having only superficially skimmed the Akhtar–Mufti debate, it didn’t achieve resolution because it cannot, but it set an example of civility in disagreement.)
1 month ago | [YT] | 31
View 2 replies
Akshita singh baghel
When an interviewer asks, “If I visit your state for three days, where would you take me?”
Have a solid itinerary ready: not just famous monuments, but small cultural experiences like a local market, a craft village, a food street, a sunset point only locals know. This shows you’re rooted.
But the finest way to end this answer is:
“…and on the last evening, Ma’am/Sir, I’d love to host you for a simple home-cooked dinner with my family.”
Your plan shows your knowledge. Your closing shows your heart.
Moral of the story: In any room, information can impress the mind but warmth is what ultimately wins the heart.
2 months ago | [YT] | 43
View 7 replies
Akshita singh baghel
- Tyrion Lannister in ‘Games of Thrones’
We belong to a world that often encourages erasure of identity in the name of progress.
Anglicise your name.
Tone down your rituals.
Don’t speak in your regional accent.
And yet, irony persists: an Indian American may perfect the most neutral accent in the room and still be introduced as “the brown doctor.”
While an actress like Priyanka Chopra who did not soften her Indianness to blend in, rather sharpened it to stand out.
That is the trap. What you bury becomes a weapon others can use against you. What you accept becomes your armour.
And once you carry your identity with pride, no one else can carry them against you.
2 months ago | [YT] | 39
View 4 replies
Akshita singh baghel
2 months ago | [YT] | 57
View 4 replies
Akshita singh baghel
Each time we celebrate a festival, we momentarily dissolve our individuality into something larger than the self. Something that’s not about personal interests and wins, but about the shared values that a community cherishes.
It’s not logic, it’s a cultural anchor. By learning the litttle rituals, we keep alive a chain that connects the generations before us to the generations after us.
And Diwali is the jewel among them all. So let’s not be a bore. Go, celebrate and keep the chain alive.
शुभ दीपावली! ✨🪔
3 months ago | [YT] | 32
View 2 replies
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