If you are short on time and need to prepare for your General Paper exam, what should you do? Or, if you wish to study smart and use your time effectively, what should be your plan? Let’s examine popular General Paper topics and themes you can expect, despite how much you study.
Popular topics and themes are a sure way of hitting the jackpot for your exam questions. Not only will they be easier to prepare for, they will also more likely appear in your exams. These are the topics that would attract immediate concern, like those on world urgency matters.
General Paper Topics and Themes
Environment
Matters that grip our concern and drive us to action will dominate the General Paper questions. These can include:
• Climate change
• Threat to life
• Resources
• Recycle, Reuse, Reduce
These questions may be disguised in other ways and you may have to decipher it!
For instance, you may get a question on issues that affect us deeply today and this can be construed according your advantage. This may also be a question on the actions taken today that may affect our future.
Themes on issues affecting us and our future are general and can easily be connoted as world issue topics. Environment topics can fall into the popular cause and effect genre. What caused this issue and what are the solutions needed to combat it? This is an evergreen theme.
Other sub-themes leading off from this popular topic is changes. Topics like changes is very subjective and can seamlessly fit into questions about the environment. Particularly, how the environment is causing changes and how our future may change as a result of that.
Therefore, environment topics may be hidden in other forms. Do look out for these connecting words and themes. They will lead you to what you should write and have prepared yourself for.
Technology
Tech has always had its own genre representation in General Paper exams. Tech can consist of:
• Internet
• Artificial Intelligence
• Medical technology
• Advancement in food technology
• Associated themes and topics – Social media, cyberbullying, scams and online harassment
Technology is an extremely popular topic as it is very current and there is always evolving news about it. We often hear about people being affected by online harassment or stalking, and how someone lost a large sum of money in an online scam.
Vigilantes and the police have stepped up in resolving these issues, but cyber criminals are always one step ahead, which means that this sort of issues will only be more prevalent. There will always be new information and evidence demonstrating how evolving technology affects our lives adversely.
Another hot topic is artificial intelligence, which has been all over the internet lately. There is always contradicting news about both its efficacy and how it makes our lives easier and, in the contrary, how it is a threat to our lives and jobs.
Questions on AI can be concentrated on the new wave of employment or how we will have to make room for this change. The advantages and disadvantages of AI will be a key element in these questions and you should definitely expect to see that.
Disguised questions can look like, how technology has affected us today, or regarding the advantages of technology, or how our lives have changed for the better thanks to technology. The last is an open-ended question which can be construed in any way you want.
Lifestyle
Lifestyle related topics can involve general themes like:
• Family and unity
• Teenage lifestyle
• Spending and materialism
• Bonding
Lifestyle questions are endless. They will always be trending and pop up in your exams as community value questions or how people live. As the range of answers is so wide and subjective, you may use any one of your prepared answers, provided that you write according to the keywords in the question.
These questions are popular as themes on Generation X and Z, and their attitudes will crop up.
Prevalent themes today will revolve around how generation Z’s expectations are different. How will they fit into the demands of our world today? Will they be able to rise to the challenges of our society?
Questions on money and materialism, current consciousness, and how we have changed compared to the previous generation can be another popular trend that comes to mind.
Subjective questions
Subjective questions are always current. They will attempt to ask you on your view of values, such as:
• Is honesty an important attribute?
• Is being ambitious a positive attitude?
• Are people judged for their morals?
• Is it important to practice charity?
These are purely subjective questions and you may write about it from any angle. You may choose to be philosophical, base your answer on anecdotes, write about it from a news angle based on current news, or you may just write about it from a personal recount angle.
Popular General Paper topics and themes will always appear in exams no matter which year the paper is set. You will be surprised that the same question on technology may have appeared in a paper that is 20 years old! The only difference is the evidence presented.
Remember, the information in your answers should always be current. Stay ahead of trends and keep up with the latest breaking news. That way, you will get to prepare for these topics well in advance. Popular topics will save the day for your General Paper exam. Prepare well and good luck!