Written ability Test has become a tool to test MBA aspirant on assessing overall communication and personality so it is also equally important and crucial component of MBA selection processes.
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This article on "Writing Instruments “ which will boost your confidence to be successful in Written Ability Test:
Whenever an idea or sudden inspiration comes to your mind, what’s the first thing you search for? You would definitely search for a pencil or pen to write, to scribble, draw or highlight your thoughts to show them to others or to remind yourself later. Thus, every idea starts with a pencil or pen. This is how we can define the importance of writing instruments in our life. To make ideas visible, one needs a product or better to say, an instrument that display your mind’s creativity to enables in pleasant, comfortable and dependable writing, coloring or drawing. Everyone’s ideas and thoughts come in mind first and then are brought to paper with a fine writing instrument.
Black, blue, green, red, pink, brown, purple, gold and silver, all these are the different colors we can write with today. Not only colors, today there are many different styles in pens are available in the market. But our modern pens did not start out quite as fancy. They started as humble devices meant for recording events and dates. It is quite safe to say that without the discovery of ancient pens, we would never have known or learnt as much as we have!
In prehistoric days, man tries to scratch patterns into stone with a stone hand axe. For thousands of years, pictures remained the only mode of communication. Gradually, iconographic writing developed into symbolic writing that could be drawn quickly and it was performed by well paid fulltime scribes.
In 4000 B.C, ancient people used crude pens consisting of hollow straws or reeds that supported a short column of liquid. Ancient Indians were the first to use pen. According to primeval text the earliest of pens made in India used bird feathers, bamboo sticks, etc. During the 500 BC, people began to make pens from the wings feathers of such birds as geese and swans. The shaft of the feathers was hardened, and the writing tip was shaped and slit to make writing easy. These feather pens were known as quill pens, and they were widely used until the development of steel-nib pens in the 1800's. The old literature of Puranas, Ramayana and Mahabharta is written with feather pen.
Ancient Egyptians had developed writing on papyrus scrolls when scribes used thin reed brushes or reed pens from the juncus Maritimus or sea rush. Steven Roger Fisher mentioned in his book ‘A History of Writing’ that reed pen might have been used for writing on parchment. The reed pen generally made from bamboo. Reed pens continued to be used until the Middle Ages, though they were slowly replace by quills from about the 7th century.
After the fall of the Roman Empire, Europeans had difficulty in obtaining reeds and began to use quills. Quill pens were still widely used in the 18th century. The Quill pen was used in Qumran, Judea to write some of the Dead Sea Scrolls, which date back to around 100 BC. The scrolls were written in Hebrew dialects with bird feathers or quills. Quill pen were used to write and sign the Constitution of the United States in 1787. It is still used in some parts of Pakistan by young students and is used to write on small boards made of timber.
A copper nib was found in the ruins of Pompeii, showing that metal nibs were used in the year 79. There is also a reference in Samuel Pepys' diary for August 1663. A metal pen point was patented in 1803 but the patent was not commercially exploited. John Mitchell of Birmingham started to mass produce pens with metal nibs in 1822, and thereafter the quality of steel nibs had improved enough that dip pens with metal nibs came into generalized use.
The first Fountain Pen was invented in 1883 and this pen represented a major improvement over previous pens, because it featured an ink reservoir and a capillary feed. Earlier pens held only a small amount of ink at a time and needed to be repeatedly dipped in ink.
Like pen, facts about second most important writing instrument ‘pencil’ is also very interesting. Did you know that modern pencils owe it all to an ancient Roman writing instrument called a stylus? Scribes used this thin metal rod to leave a readable mark on papyrus (an early form of paper). Early styluses were made of lead, which is what we still call pencil cores even though they actually are made of non-toxic graphite.
Graphite came into widespread use following the discovery of a large graphite deposit in Borrow dale, England in 1564. The mineral proved so soft and brittle that it required a holder. Originally, graphite sticks were wrapped in string. Later, the graphite was inserted into hollowed-out wooden sticks. The wood-cased pencil was born!
One pencil has the potential to draw a line 35 miles long, write an average of 45,000 words, and absorb 17 sharpening. But let’s get right to the point. Because pencils are so useful and so dominant in daily life, they tend to be taken for granted. It’s a fact that pencils truly are one of the greatest technological inventions of all times, the original tech toy, providing the springboard for launching all expressions of art, design and communications.
In schools as per academic rules up to 5th standard students have to write with pencil only. Reason behind it is very logical, immature minds make many mistakes in writing and it is easy to erase text which is written with pencil. So pencil has played a very important role in everybody’s learning stage. It is also said that to improve handwriting one should practice with pencil.
In scientific term, a pen is a device used to apply ink to a surface, usually paper, for writing or drawing. The main modern types of pens are: ballpoint pen, crow quill pen, fountain pen, marker, or felt-tip pen, and roller ball pen. These historic types of pens are no longer in common use: A dip pen, ink brush, quill, and reed pen. On other hand, a pencil is a writing implement or art medium usually constructed of a narrow, solid pigment core inside a protective casing. The case prevents the core from breaking, and also from marking the user’s hand during use. These writing instruments also give birth to other stationeries like ink, sharpener, rubber etc.
Nowadays, technology has been developing so fast that somebody says computers, cell phones, E-books and many other high-tech gadgets are changing our life. We used to write with writing instruments years ago, but now it seems that high-tech products have replaced our writing instruments.
In fact, writing instruments are of vital importance to our daily life. High-tech products can never replace writing instruments. First of all, in history, the by-product of writing instruments is calligraphy. Calligraphy represents a unique culture in every country and is one of the symbols of a country. That’s why some famous people’s handwritten works are far valuable than other non-written documents.
Writing instruments are invented by our innovative ancestors and have played a very important role in global history. It’s the writing instruments that helped people to record things, make laws and write books. Of course, writing instruments are still very important to our life and will always be important. In comparison, all of us look at handwritten type much more dependable, significant as well as fascinating.
