English Grammar

Title: Examinations

Examination means a test of capacity and Knowledge. It is a thing that a student hates most. According to him the system of examinations is the most absurd thing so far invented by man. He usually compares it to a night mare. Examinations may be a pleasure for a few brilliant students but they are a necessity for an average student and a bore for a majority of them. Yet examinations are not altogether devoid of good. As lord Christ said “Trials are a veritable curse. But they have their use.”

Examinations have uses. First, they serve as a test of efficiency. It is only by giving an examination that we can know what progress a particular student has made during a period. Examinations supply as a tangible proof of the fitness of a student for the higher class. A university degree or diploma shows that a particular student has acquired knowledge of a fixed standard. Thus an employer can safely entrust a job to the degree holder after examining the degree. We, without hesitation entrust our sick body to a man holding a medical degree. In a word, a degree is a guarantee that the holder is not a quack or a fool. In the absence of examinations and degrees, we will be at a loss to find out a man whose efficiency is tested. Secondly, examinations are test of ability and degrees; we will be at a loss to find out a man whose efficiency is tested. Secondly, examinations are test of ability and help us to make a distinction between the scholar land dullard the genius and the dunce. They help us to find out the ablest candidate out of a group of many. To fill all higher services, examinations are conducted by the public service commission, and the top students are selected to fill the vacancies. Thirdly, examinations goad us to study properly. It is the fear of examinations that makes us work. Many careless students grow serious near examinations. They try to be systematic and regular. About half of the students in a school or college read for the sake of examinations. Nobody would have cared to work if there were no examinations. Thus examinations are the most effective way of inspiring a student to read.

But examinations have their darker aspects as well. Firstly, they shatter the blooming health of young students. They sit up late in the night to prepare for the examination. A number of them fall ill or develop nervous disorders. Some of them are reduced to shadows, even to skeletons. They lose their peace of mind and suffer at times from utter sleeplessness owning to excessive brain exercise. From this point of view, examinations are a curse Secondly examinations encourage the very bad habit of cramming. They are a test of memory rather than of intelligence or knowledge. Good marks of mere success in the examination is looked upon as the only test of true knowledge. Students read help books to get good marks and neglect the prescribed books. Thirdly, examinations are no sure test of one’s ability. Chance plays a great part in all examinations. Intelligent students may fail and dullard may pass. Many eminent persons of the world are not holders of high academic degrees or distinctions. We can mention the names of Stevenson, Keats, Shelley, Shakespeare, Tagore, Maulana Maudoodi, and Maulana Abul Kalam Azad.

Title: Environmental Pollution

Environmental pollution is a term that refers to all the ways by which people pollute their surroundings. People dirty the air with gases and smoke, poison the water with chemicals and other substances, and damage the soil with too many fertilizers and pesticides: People also pollute their surroundings in various other ways. For example, they ruin natural beauty by scattering junk and litter on the land and in the water. They operate machines and motor vehicles that fill the air with disturbing noise. Nearly everyone causes pollution in some way.

Environmental pollution is one of the most serious problems faced by humanity today. Air, water and soil-all harmed by pollution are necessary to the survival of all living things. Badly polluted air can cause illness, and even death. Polluted water kills fish and other marine life. Pollution of soil reduces the amount of land available for growing food. Environmental pollution brings ugliness to our naturally beautiful world.

Everyone wants to reduce pollution. But the pollution problem is as complicated as it is serious. It is complicated because much pollution is caused by things that benefit people. For example, exhaust from automobile causes a large percentage of all air pollution. But the automobile provides transportation for millions of people. Factories discharge much of the material that pollutes air and water, but factories provide jobs for people. Too much fertilizer or pesticide can ruin soil, but fertilizers and pesticides are important aids to the growing of crops.

Thus, to end or greatly reduce pollution immediately, people would have to stop using many things that benefit them Most people do not want to do that, of course. But pollution can be gradually reduced in several ways. Scientists and engineers can work to find ways to lessen the amount of pollution that such things as automobiles and factories cause.

Governments can pass and enforce laws that require businesses and individuals to stop or cut down on certain polluting activities. And perhaps most importantly individuals and groups of people can work to persuade their representatives in government, and also persuade businesses, to take action towards reducing pollution.

People have always polluted their surrounding. But throughout much of history, pollution was not a major problem. Most people lived in uncrowned rural areas, and the pollutants (waste products) they produced were widely scattered. People had no pollution causing machines or motor vehicles. The development of crowded industrial cities in the 1700‘s and 1800’s made pollution a major problem: People and factories in these cities put huge amounts of pollutants into small areas. During the 1900’s urban areas continued to develop and automobiles and other new inventions made pollution steadily worse. By the mid 1990’s, pollution had affected the water in every major lake and river and the air over every major city in the United States and other industrial countries. Since the late 1960’s, millions of people have become alarmed by the dangers of pollution. Large numbers of people are now working to reduce pollution.

Title: Education For Women

What type of education? Useful subjects as nursing, hygiene. The backwardness of a country depends mainly on the percentage of illiteracy. This percentage is very high among men In the world, but it reaches at alarmingly figure in the case of women. So for the progress of a country, education for women is as much essential as for men. Men and women are two wheels of the cart of society. The cart cannot run properly if one of the wheels is defective. Women form almost half of the population of a country. If such a large portion is denied the privilege of Education the country is likely to lag behind. There was a time when it was said that educated women are apt to neglect their domestic duties, and lose their tender grace and feminine virtues An educated woman was suspected to be self -conceited nil, good only for novel reading, playing on the organ, slighting her husband and disobeying her parents. But those days are gone. It is now, pretty difficult to procure a good match for a girl who does not know how to read and write. The importance of education for women is now admitted on all hands. Now the educated girl is as familiar a phenomenon as the educated boy.

Women play various roles in society, so there are many advantages of education for women. first, an educated woman is conversant with her duties as a citizen of a state. An educated woman aware of the part she has to play in the growth of her nation. She understands her responsibilities towards herself, her family and her country. Women cannot become good citizens if they are uneducated. Moreover, they pass on their education to their children. It has been rightly said: “If you educate a man, you educate an individual: but if you educate a woman you educate a family.”

Secondly, a mother yields a great influence on her child. The upbringing of a child, the inculcation of good ideas and habits are done more by the mothers than the fathers or the teachers. An educated mother can serve her country in the sense that she produces good citizens with tolerant views and vast outlooks. Uneducated mothers are superstitious. They do not have elementary medical knowledge. The alarming figure of infant mortality is mostly due to the ignorance of mothers. Educated mothers will give the nation healthy, enlightened and decently brought-up children.

Lastly, an uneducated woman cannot be a good wife. She will not be able to understand her husband. There will be no mutual adjustment , which is very essential for a good Matrimonial life on the other hand, an educated wife is refined, matured and resourceful. She can help the family by getting into some employment. She can look after her husband and children in illness. She can easily run the administration of the home properly. If education is so necessary for women, more girls schools, Colleges and Universities should be opened for them. But all women do not need that type of education, which is imparted to men. There are many who are to stay at home. To them useful subjects such as nursing, domestic science, hygiene and embroidery should be taught. These subjects can be of more help to them than higher Mathematics, Political Science or Economics.

Title: Education

Carlyle regards men without education as mutilated beings, and with great force insists that to deprive men and women of the blessings of education is as bad as it would be to deprive them of eyes or hands. An uneducated man may a indeed well be compared to a blind man. The blind man has a very imperfect idea of the world in which he lives, as compared with those who have the use of their eyes, and the uneducated labour under a similar inferiority of mental vision. While the uneducated man has his mind confined to the narrow circle of such unintelligent labour as he is capable of performing, the educated man can look far back into the past and forward into the future. His mind is full of great events that happened long ago, about which history gives him information, and from his knowledge of the past he is able to form conjectures about the social and political condition to which the world is progressing. The uneducated man sees in the heavenly bodies, that illumine the sky by night, nothing but innumerable specks of light, some more and some less bright.

Any one who has learnt astronomy divides them into fixed stars and planets, and form in his mind a conception of the planets of the solar system rolling round the sun, and of countless other greater suns than ours, each of which may have its own planetary system, occupying the more distant realms of boundless space. By help of the telescope he can map out the seas and mountains of the moon and of the nearer planets, and the spectroscope tells him the elements of which the stars are composed, The botanist finds the plants at his feet and the trees above his head full of interest. The entomologist, zoologist and geologist enrich the stores of their minds by the study of insects, animals, and fossils. Indeed there is not one of the long list of modern sciences that does not open the eyes of the mind to wonders undreamt of by the uneducated man.

Those who have no taste for science can enrich their minds with the literary wealth of ancient and modern times, and learn the thoughts of the greatest intellects of the world on all manner of subjects. If it is a pleasure to converse with the ordinary men we meet in everyday life, how much greater is the privilege of reading in books the noblest thoughts of such great writers as Plato, Milton, and Shakespeare. These writers of world wide fame, who are not of an age but for all time, are the delight of all students of literature, and stand apart on the highest pinnacle of glory. But below the very highest literary rank there is in every language a large number of excellent writers, whose works are specially adapted to various readers of every age and of every temperament, so that, whatever our intellectual tastes may be, we are sure to find satisfaction for them in the wide and varied field of literature.

Thus it is that education, besides being of practical assistance to us in the struggle of life, enlarges and ennobles the mind and enables us to live as beings endowed with human intellects ought to live.

Other titles of the above Essay

• Importance of Education
• Difference between Educated and Illetrate
• Why Educate yourself
• Education an essence of Life

Title: Discipline

Discipline plays a very important role in every walk of life. Man is a social being. He lives in the society and it is essential for him to follow the rules of the society. Without discipline a man is like a ship without rudder. Discipline is a kind of training to fore-go personal interest for the benefit of the society. It is incumbent upon every person to observe, the laws made by the society and must pay obedience to these rules and regulations.

Discipline is found everywhere from the Heaven above and the Earth below. Animals, insects, bees and even wild beasts lead a disciplined life. Discipline ensures perfect harmony and its absence results in chaos and dis-order. Discipline is very important both in individual life as it implies self-restraint and control. Those who do not exercise it, fall a victim to many troubles aid sufferings. Its observance guarantees success and achievement of our cherished goal.

Discipline is of vital importance in educational institutions. It helps students to acquire knowledge and infuses a spirit of patience and perseverance. It makes their life sublime and leads them towards progress.

Discipline is most essential in sports as well as in the army. A small, but well-disciplined army will defeat a large ill-disciplined army. True discipline comes from within. It is like a rod to the wrong but a friend to guide all. It brings a quality of self-sacrifice, control and confidence among all individuals, severely and collectively.Discipline implies self-sacrifice, personal gains and interest for the welfare of all.

Breach and violation of discipline brings ruins of a man. Discipline must be maintained at all cost to gain popularity in the society. It matters, little if we have to lose everything for the sake of discipline. A strict disciplinarian is honored everywhere and earn a good name for himself as well as for his family.

Title: Competitive Examinations

Competitive examinations are used for two purposes. At school and college they give a stimulus to study by rewarding with reputation prizes, and scholarships, those who show that they learned most. They are also used in the selection of officers for the military and civil services. Looking at them from an educational point of view, every one must allow that they have a wonderful effect in encouraging hard work. Many boys who without the stimulus of competition, would refuse to take any interest in their lessons, pursue their studies with the greatest industry in the hope of surpassing their rivals. In this way they are induced to expand upon their work the energy which otherwise they would display only in their games. Only a few students love knowledge for her own sake. The majority seek knowledge as a means of success in life, or as a possession which will give them the pleasure of triumphing over their associate’s. Success in life is too distant an object to influence powerfully young schoolboys, so that in their case desire of the reputation to be gained in competitive examinations is a much stronger motive. When they grow older and approach the time when they will have to make their own way in the world, the necessity of study as a preparation for success in life becomes more apparent but to the very last the prospect of success in competitive examinations is a great encouragement to hard study, even when the student has no reason to expect that a high place in the list will be a recommendation to some appointment he wishes to obtain.

Thus competitive examinations do good service in the encouragement of study. They are not, however, without their accompanying disadvantages. In some cases competition is such an excessively powerful stimulus that it leads to over-work and the ruin of the physical health of too ambitious students. There is also a serious danger of harm to the moral character. In a competitive examination the successful candidate gains honor at the expense of his defeated rival. Owning to this fact unrestricted competition is apt to encourage selfishness, and extinguish the kindly feeling which ought to exist between young students at school and college. In such struggles for success the competitors are tempted to stoop to actual dishonesty, and it too often happens that they yield to the temptation. These are grave dangers, against which it is the duty of the teacher to I do his best to defend his pulps: but in spite ‘of their gravity the competitive system is no necessary for efficient education that it could not be abandoned without ruinous results.

As a means of testing fitness for government service competitive examinations are so on the whole most-serviceable. It is objected against the Civil Service and other such examinations, that those who take a high place in the list are often mere bookworms, destitute of energy and practical ability. This may be admitted to be true in certain number of cases, but the admission merely amounts to this, that the system of selection by competitive examinations is, like almost everything else in the world, imperfect: that it sometimes admits the worse and rejects the better man among the candidates. It is, however, quite certain that a large majority of the successful candidates in a competitive examination are superior to those who have failed. Cleverness in mastering languages literature, and science is, as a rule associated with general ability, and the accurate knowledge of difficult books is a proof either of great intellectual ability or else of determined industry, which is as useful a qualification in a government servant as intellectual ability.

Thus, on the whole, the best men come to the front in competitive examinations; and, until a better system of selection is devised, the competitive system should be retained. At present the only alternative seems to be selection by patronage, which is far more likely to admit incapable men into the public service, and is open to other serious objections.

Title: Christmas

Christmas is the most famous and greatest festival of Christians. It is celebrated on 25th December every year in the memory of birth of Jesus Christ. This is the most important festival among Christians who celebrate it with great pomp and show. The celebration of this festival continues about a week and its preparation begins about a month earlier. The Christmas cards are sent to friends, relatives dear and near ones. The evening of 24th December is called the Christmas eve. The Christians dust and decorate their houses with flags, festoons, flowers, pictures and photos. They offer a gay spectacle. Everybody whether young or old, men or women look happy. The Child wears clean clothes and move about gaily and briskly. Fruits and sweets are bought and distributed among friends and family members. On Christmas be all wait eagerly and anxiously for the next day. The night ends and the auspicious Christmas day comes. The Christians get up early despite the cold December morning. They become ready and go to church and offer prayer to God.

They offer good wishes to their friends and relatives. They return to their houses and take sumptuous feast in their hoses in the company of friends and relatives. The rest of the day passes in merriment and recreations. They illuminate their houses in the evening. A Christmas tree is planted in the house and loaded with fruits and gifts. The children go round the tree and play games. The keep late hours at night in dancing and merry making and other recreations. Joys and smiles prevail when peons bring parcels and Christmas Cards. This is a good occasion for reviving friendships. Exchange of present, bring happiness and divides sorrows. A current of happiness and cheerfulness passes from house to house and continues up to New Year’s Day. Decorations, feasts, present, friendly visits, eating, drinking and merry-making and dancing are the chief items of this festival of the Christians.

Title: Choice of Books

As it is impossible to read more than a very small fraction of the immense number of books now in existence, the proper choice of books is a matter of great importance. As popular writer lately drew out a list of what were in his opinion the hundred best books to read. But although all that Sir John Lubbock has to say on any question of general interest is sure to be instructive and deserves serious consideration, it would be idle to suppose that the hundred books that seem best to one particular person can be the best for every other individual. The list he made out may be about as good a list as could be devised for persons of his own character and education, but must be modified by each of us in accordance with our own tastes and the end we seek to obtain by reading.

The chief end for which a young student studies books is almost always success in examinations, for the attainment of which success he sometimes sacrifices more important ends. He will therefore be inclined to neglect general reading, and only care to obtain from his teacher a list of the books that will help him in the work of mastering the prescribed course of study. When he leaves college, if he has acquired in the course of his education a taste for reading, he will probably aim at the wider object of increasing his culture, and at the same time he ought to be anxious to choose such books as will not only increase his knowledge, but also make him a better and happier man. In making his choice he will have to take into consideration his own intellectual tastes and of the nature occupation by which he earns his subsistence.

Owing to differences in these matters the intellectual food of one man may be another’s poison. For instance, a book containing the records of minute observation of bees and ants, which would be full of interest to a scientific mind like Sir John Lubbock’s, might be so utterly distasteful to a person fond of poetry or abstruse metaphysics, that it would be foolish waste of time for him to try and understand it. Even men of similar taste may, owing to differences in their circumstances, find it expedient to choose very different courses of reading. Of two persons equally addicted to philosophy, one has light work and such an abundance of spare time that he may profitably sketch out for himself a regular course of philosophical books, while the other is engaged in such hard brain work every day in his professional calling, that it would be unwise for him to employ his leisure hours in any difficult study. Those who are unfortunately compelled to expend the whole force of their intellects on their daily work must content themselves with such light literature as is afforded by the novelists and the poets and the columns of the daily press. If they attempt more, they are likely to ruin their health by overtaxing their brains.

Even those who are required by prudence to avoid philosophy and science, and have to confine themselves to light literature, must not, however, think that it does not matter what they read. For them, and for all others who are by circumstances limited to a narrow sphere of study, the best rule to follow is that laid down by Emerson, that we should never ready any but famed books. If this rule were more generally observed, we should not find so many readers of fiction in this country wasting their time over the novels of Reynolds, before they have read the great works of Scott. Thackeray, Dickens, and George Eliot.

It has been objected that, if the rule we are recommending has been followed in the past, no book would ever have be come famed. thus is a valid objection against the universal acceptance of the rule. But, as there is no fear of its ever being universally accepted, and as there is a large class of clever literary men whose business it is to examine all new books and form an opinion upon their merits, the majority of mankind in planning a course of reading for the few hours they can spare for self culture cannot do better than follow Emerson’s precept.

Other Titles for the Above Essay:

• Books Selection
• Things to Consider while Choosing Books