Precis Writing Samples - 4 | Course for UPPSC Preparation - UPPSC (UP) PDF Download

Examples of Précis Writing #1

The noblest deeds that have been done on earth have not been done for gold. It was not for the sake of gold that Lord Jesus came down and died on the cross. The Spartans looked for no reward where they fought and died at Thermopylae. Socrates the wise asked for no pay from his countrymen but lived poor and barefooted all his days only caring to make them good and noble. And there are heroes even in our own days also who do noble deeds but not for gold.
Our discoverers did not go to make themselves rich when they sailed out one after another into the dreary frozen seas: nor did the ladies who went out to drudge in the hospital of the East make themselves poor that they might be rich in noble work. (136 words)

Sample Answer

Title: Money should not be the goal of life
Precis: It is not for money that the noblest deeds have been done by great men. Jesus, Socrates, the Spartans, the explorers, and the nurses in hospitals served mankind purely for the sake of service. (34 words)

Examples of Précis Writing #2

From the moment we are born, we can not live alone; we stand in continual need of assistance from all around us, for body and soul and spirit; we need clothes that other men make; houses, which other men build, food, which other men produce; we have to get our livelihood by working for others, while others get their livelihood in return by working for us.
As children we need our parents to be our comforters, and to take care of others: we can not exist a day without our fellowmen; we require teachers to educate us: books and masters to teach our trade; and when we have learned it and settled ourselves in life, we require laws made by other men who died hundreds of years before we were born, to secure to us our rights and properties, to secure to our comforts in our station; and we need friends to comfort us in sorrow and to share our joy. (161 words)

Sample Answer

Title: One can not live alone
Precis: We cannot live alone in this world. We need the help of a host of people-the farmers for food, the weaver for cloth, the mason for houses; for consolation in sorrow, teachers for education, lawyers for property, and above all, parents to bring up in our childhood. (47 words)

Examples of Précis Writing #3

We call anything beautiful that gives us pleasure, and that depends as much upon ourselves as upon what is outside us. Perhaps the majority of people find the sea beautiful when it is blue. If someone has lived in Italy as a child and has to live beside the grey northern seas when he is grown up, he will think that the grey seas are ugly: and that nothing can be so beautiful as the blue Mediterranean. But suppose a Scottsman who loves Scotland has to go and live in Italy. He might find the blue sea after a little while very uninteresting. Only when he went home and saw the grey sea again would he find the sea beautiful.
We are made in different ways, and grey may be just as beautiful as blue, just as the cry of a baby may be found sweeter in someone’s ears than the finest note of the finest singer that ever lived. Nothing is beautiful or ugly in itself, but thinking makes it so. (172 words)

Sample Answer

Title: Test of Beauty
Precis: Nothing in this world is beautiful or ugly in itself. Things appear beautiful or ugly according to the idea of our beauty of ourselves. The same thing may appear different to people brought up in different environments. Generally, speaking the majority of people consider a thing beautiful that gives pleasure. But this depends on our outlook. (56 words)

Examples of Précis Writing #4

Charity is a universal duty, which it is in every man’s powers sometimes to practice, since every degree of assistance given to another on proper motives, is an act of charity; and there is scarcely any man in such a state of weakness that he may not on some occasion benefit his neighbour. He that can not relieve the poor may instruct the ignorant, and he that can not attend to the sick may reclaim the vicious.
He that can give little assistance himself may yet perform the duty of charity by inflaming the ardour of others and recommending the petitions which he can not grant, to those who have more power to bestow. The widow that shall give her mite to the treasury, and the poor man who shall bring to the thirsty a cup of cold water, shall not lose their reward. (143 words)

Sample Answer

Title: Universal Aspect of Charity
Precis: Charity, being universal duty, must be practised by all and everyone can practice it easily according to his capacity. Apart from money, any help in words or actions like nursing, teaching, or reforming the vicious is charity. Failing to do anything personally may influence others even. (47 words)

Examples of Précis Writing #5

Mankind in general is not sufficiently acquainted with the import of the word justice. It is commonly believed to consist only in the performance of those duties which the laws of society can oblige. This, I allow is sometimes the import of this word, and in this sense, justice is distinguished from equity. But there is justice still more extensive, and which can be shown to embrace all the virtues united. Justice may be defined as a virtue that urges us to give to every person what is his due.
In this extended sense of the word, it comprehends the practice of every virtue that reason prescribes or society should expect. Our duty to our maker, to each other, and to ourselves is fully answered if we give them what we owe them. Thus justice, properly speaking, is the only virtue, all the rest have their origin in it. (150 words)

Sample Answer

Title: Meaning of Justice
Precis: Justice, as commonly understood, means performing the duties approved by society and in this sense, it differs from equity. But justice in the broadest sense implies the virtue of giving everyone one’s due. This includes one’s duty to God and to society as also all other virtues. (47 words)