XAT - Essay Writing Zone

[scarletyoke]

Looking at the fact that a short essay is part of the XAT test, I am inviting all of you to come here and write one essay everyday.

One of us can post a topic each day at a fixed time (say 10 pm). We get one day till we post our essays, here. We can evaluate and discuss general pointers on the nuances of each aspect to consider. We could also, if we get enough people committed, maybe have a few individual essays evaluated.

What say guys?

For starters, let's have:
"Of what use is art?"

Post in till tomorrow evening. Let's see how it goes.

[aps]

Can any of the XAT veterans post what were the essay topics during the last 2,3 years.

[scarletyoke]

Originally Posted by aps

Can any of the XAT veterans post what were the essay topics during the last 2,3 years.

Thanks for showing interest, aps.

The advancedge-MBA Dec05 issue has quite a few pointers on the XAT essay. Well, that's where I got this list of prev year XAT essays (hope posting it here isn't a copyright violation or something ):

The following is a list of the XAT Essay topics in the last six years -

1999- "Television really is another eye so you can feel and care about things you never felt and cared about before, another ear to hear strange music… The first and only international language."

2000- Ships are safer in the harbour. But they are not meant for the same.

2001- Economic Growth without distributive justice can only lead to violence.

2002- Indian Economy in the Post WTO Era.

2003- To give real service, one needs to add something that cannot be bought or measured, like sincerity and integrity.

2004- Asked at the age of 83, as to which of his project would he choose as his master piece, Frank Lloyd Wright, the architect, answered, "The next one".

2005- More than one billion Indians. A gigantic problem or a sea of opportunities?

Hope that helps.

Btw, nobody has yet posted their essay yet, but the deadline is still not over. I'll post mine nonetheless, hoping this group takes off soon.

[scarletyoke]

Here's my essay. All your comments are invited, if not desperately sought.
Of what use is art?
(15 minute essay)

ART is within everybody’s HEART. Look at a ‘Mona Lisa’ wallpaper on your computer screen and the renaissance feel comes pouring out into you, along with Dan Brown’s book and the mystery of the Holy Grail. <Doesn’t that classic smirk just tell you that, Mona darling here went shopping and spent half her husband’s salary?>

But, of what use is art, one would ask? Before we ask that, let us first ask what really is art? Paintings, sculptures, murals, carvings, graffiti… Well, yes! But, how about literature, dance, music, theatre, architecture? By that line of thought, designing (engineering, fashion, and the like), city planning, elocution, cooking, advertising, hacking (both software and wood), carpentry and plumbing and many others could all claim to be heirs to the fabulous family called ‘The Arts’? Maybe, like the Hindu deity, art also has Teen Koti (3 Crore) forms?

For starters if you were an artist, painter, scribe, thespian, or minstrel you wouldn’t be seeking an answer to whether art is useful… it’s where the bread and butter is coming from, dear. Through art, in its myriad avatars, we express ourselves – our thoughts, our desires, our joy and jubilation, & also our sorrows and sadness. A lot of life-coaches, these days, prescribe art as means of Anger Management and also Healing. Art (read theatre and literature) gives us ways to fulfill our fantasies & hidden cravings. Art in its many manifestations (read Box-office & good literature & yes, even poetry recitals for some of us) also provides a means of entertainment for most. Art (read Rock Concerts) is an amazing medium of bringing people together, and to an extent that they become a cult (if you don’t agree ask a certain Half-blood Prince).

Art, some would claim can even solve all the problems of the world… the Live8 concerts claim to have raised enough to quench the hunger of Africa! Art has also time and again inspired revolutions, if silent ones, throughout history, be it the slave-songs in pre-Civil War America or the knotting patterns of peasant ladies used to communicate secret messages throughout the French Revolution. It’s the arts (murals, pottery, surviving scripts) from the ruins that help us understand the culture and life of great civilizations. Art is one legacy we leave for the future and another endeavor in the pursuit of immortality.

Art inspires. Art stimulates. Art unites. Art is a manifestation of the collective personality and character of a civilization and represents the aspiration of a people, & how could a thing such as that be of no utility.
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So what say folks?

[mayank92]

nice Essay, though I m not 2 sure whether the topic was a good choice. if you look at the last 5 years, most essay are either economics or management related.

So an essay on an economic issue, or a mangement problem is more likely to feature in the XAT, then topics from other streams of the humanities

[greenday]

2002- Indian Economy in the Post WTO Era.

can anybody tell me what this topic means?
it would be really helpful if some keypoints are mentioned

i guess its time to stop watching nach baliye and start watching NDTV

[aarti85]

does the XAT essay make up a good part of the score? and do we have a choice or is it just 2 topic

[prettyhatemachine]

Originally Posted by scarletyoke

The following is a list of the XAT Essay topics in the last six years

Here are some of the older one's :

1996
There is no right way of doing a wrong thing.

1997
"By the third or fourth week of the term, business school had succeeded in afflicting me with a variation of the Stockholm syndrome, named after the incident in which a hostage in a Stockholm bank robbery fell in love with one of her captors." (Peter Robinson in Snapshots from Hell : The making of an MBA)

1998
Max Weber, a German Sociologist, defined state as an entity that has a monopoly over legal violence. India proves that the converse is also true; if criminals cannot be punished by the law, its effect they become the state. (The Economist September 27, 1997)

[killme]

hmmm....nice thread....i think people have forgotten about this thread

[meghanamba06]

Originally Posted by greenday

2002- Indian Economy in the Post WTO Era.

can anybody tell me what this topic means?
it would be really helpful if some keypoints are mentioned

i guess its time to stop watching nach baliye and start watching NDTV

Hey,

It simple OK. Start with GATT (General agreement on trade and tariff), then move on 2 WTO in 1995, the various summits, Davos, Doha, Hong Kong, etc. for the Indian scenario you can elaborate on the liberalization era ushered in by the 1991 economic reforms- PV Narsimha govt, finanace committee headed by Chidambaram, etc. and the end of licence quota raj in India, reforms in labour laws. i believe its about WTO summits as a harbinger of increased trade and competition, bringing down trade barriers btwn countries, globalization due to great strides in dev technology transforming the world into a global village. u can also put in abt b4 the WTO era there was the US-Soviet cold war era with world divided into two blocks, but then with WTO increased trade, now many regional blocks of trade- EU, ASEAN, SAARC, NATO, OECD, etc. and commerce. also about agriculatural subsidies by the US, Europe, the food prices of the developing countries are no longer competitive as US offers around 100% susidies, thus bringing down costs incurred by the farmers, so prises also come down driving sown sales of food products of developing countries. resulting in unfair competition advantage against emerging/ developing economies, how the doha round was a failure dur to the inability of the developed countries to remove the export subsidies, etc. presently US and Europe have agreed to remove them by 2015. also write abt how indian economy has grown a lot, GDP has increased, boom in manufacturing and IT exports, outsourcing, etc. now Indian trade stands at 1% of world trade and growing, we signed FTAs (Free Trade Agreement) with Sri Lanka, and other neighbouring countries, new trade partners, trade with US, China, UK, inc volume and value of exports, etc.