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Strategy for History by Ms. Surabhi Malik (AIR-51)
In Uncategorized on August 14, 2012 at 14:41
Vote of Thanks
Ms. Surabhi is one of the few people who are true at heart and say what is in their minds. She specially called me up to appreciate my eorts
in the building up of this blog for the benets of aspirants. At that time, I requested her to take some time out and write a post on
Preparation of History Optional subject for which I had already received many requests from the readers. She readily agreed and responded
promptly by emailing me the write-up within 24 hours. I was so touched and moved by her enthusiasm to help that I have no words to thank
her enough. I feel her tips would be very useful for all the candidates especially because authentic sources for guidance in History are
limited. I thank Ms. Surabhi on behalf of all the candidates once again for her eorts. She would try and reply to some queries that you post
but please bear with the delay in her responses.
Strategy for History Optional
This is a subject where strategising becomes paramount; since the expanse of the syllabus itself appears insurmountable. Since you are
preparing for exam purposes here and your primary objective is not, presumably, the love of learning , it becomes important to begin, as I
like to put it, backwards.
Its best to analyse the question papers spanning at least a decade; questions before that are too simplistic to have a fair chance of appearing
in the same form again. So, I would suggest compartmentalising questions based on chronology. That gives us a fairly expansive scale of
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topics to focus on. Second, when preparing a particular topic from a book or notes, its important to cover it in entirety i.e. think of all
possible aspects of a situation that you can be questioned on. Apart from facts, focus on whys why civilisations crumbled, how dierent
was their end to anothers end. How religious policies contributed to administration, art and architecture. Focus on analytical questions,
but be clear about facts. Only when there is clarity of facts relating to dierent periods can you handle a question that seeks to highlight the
dierences and similarities therein. You must be clear in your head what the basic dierences between dierent civilisations are. This
suggests a panoramic view of history along with some microscopic treatment. Last year, there were some descriptive questions like Khiljis
market reforms, etc and these are very standard questions that serve as bonus for an exam-taker. Dont be caught o-guard on such
questions.
For books, I began with Modern India by Bipin Chandra, supplemented by Indias struggle for Independence by Bipin Chandra,
Mukherjee, Panikkar. Spectrums book on Modern India that people use for the prelims is also a storehouse of facts! For Ancient India, I
referred to Ancient India by R.S. Sharma (a wonderfully concise book where every single word is important) and supplemented sparsely by
The Wonder that was India by A.L. Basham. Romila Thapars treatment of Ashoka is venerated in Indian historiography. For Medieval
India, I found Satish Chandras two volumes on Medieval India quite sucient.
Apart from this, another famous standard text is An Advanced History of India by Majumdar, Raychaudhuri and Dua.
Personally, I got some history notes from Mr. Hemant Jha in Delhi. I found them very useful for lling in important gaps in my knowledge.
He covers dierent aspects of topics and questions remarkably well, with regard to extra information and facts. Be aware though, you should
be reading standard texts for improving your answer-writing abilities.
As a part of my strategy, I covered the Indian History very exhaustively and was a lile selective for World History. I do not necessarily
recommend this, since it is generally thought that the questions on World History are more straightforward than questions on Modern India.
I did so because my comfort level with Indian History was greater and I felt condent of being able to tackle tricky questions. In my selective
studies on World History, i followed Mr. Hemant Jhas notes as well as Modern World by K. Krishna Reddy. There are other beer books,
you should google and look some of those up. I focussed on European History and the Revolutions in particular as I saw a repetition of
questions in these topics.
For Map, there are books available in the market with a large number of map sites and Im afraid theres no short cut there. You really have
to learn to mark all of them on the map and learn atleast 3 things about each place.
Finally, remember to set targets and achieve daily goals! Anything left over tends to add up dangerously in History. Remember you will be
writing 4-5 page answers, and when you have covered an aspect of a question that satises that word limit, move on. Youre not here to do
specialised research on one particular area. While answering questions, your introduction and conclusion should be impressive. While I
personally used my introduction to explain the seing and context of the question, I used my conclusion to summarise my answer and place
into perspective the direction that my answer took. Make sure its insightful; thats half the bale won! All the best to everyone!
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