History - Prelims and Mains Strategy

HISTORY

Sources

a. Ancient History + Art & culture

i. Ancient India NCERT by RS Sharma

ii. Selective reading of Tamil Nadu History textbook

iii. Class notes of VK Jain Sir

iv. Telegram Channel and Class notes of Nikhil Sheth Sir

v. Short notes of Kanishka Kataria Sir (AIR 1, CSE 2018)

b. Medieval History + Art & culture

i. Medieval India NCERT by Satish Chandra

ii. Class notes of Rohan Shrivastava Sir

c. Modern history

i. Spectrum

ii. Modern India NCERT by Bipan Chandra

iii. Class notes and handouts of Praveen Dixit Sir

d. Post independence

i. Politics in India since independence NCERT

ii. Short notes of Kanishka Kataria Sir

e. World history

i. Class notes and Handouts of Chandrabhan Singh Sir

ii. Short notes of Kanishka Kataria Sir

Prelims strategy

a. I revised class notes (alongside NCERT and reference books) multiple times to first let the chronology and basic facts sink in.

b. In order to better streamline revision in final months before prelims, I formed separate documents with all important facts in chronological order.

c. I revised only these docs for ancient, art & culture and modern, but for medieval I revised the doc alongside Rohan Sir's notes (highly prelims oriented)

d. Reverse learning from prelims test series helped me a lot.

e. For prelims, post-independence and world history are not much relevant.

Mains strategy

a. Revised art & culture short notes, modern timeline prepared before prelims

b. Marked last minute revision topics to improve efficiency in final days before Mains

c. Wrote some intro, conclusion pointers to maintain pace in exam

d. Diagrams may be used to improve quality, esp. in art and architecture