@indiaatwar

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Own the moment. Fight alongside. Nation deserves us.
Let Pakistan know about his daddy.

Ancient Medieval history and Art and Culture might become large and boring many times and in such a case, we think 2 things are very important - 1) PRIORITIZATION 2) MAKING INFORMATION DIGESTION FUN AND ACTIVE

We used video sources extensively for the same -

1) Bookstawa for animated explanations (Super cool and fun to memorize using bollywood references)
https://youtu.be/wIy10JCL5S0?si=gDSQ36GZZ_Sy2Nx6

2) Ollie Bye video for chronology visualization (It is our golden resource. We used to keep it open on one tab everytime and kept referring to it again and again as we read topics)
https://youtu.be/QN41DJLQmPk?si=G-QaEbzAJQPYpYKU

3) PYQ Explanations of Facets of UPSC (Take these with a pinch of salt as the information and tricks might be here and there sometimes)
https://youtu.be/YwCeOxS0Y64?si=lNfh2aF41DxyjIDn

4) Other sources - Dr UPSC youtube channel, Kawal sir videos (earlier on sleepy classes, now on Sarrthi IAS)

We tried to do PYQs from 1972. Sab perfectly ni hote the, but still they helped - at least for important topics

Hi everyone,

With prelims around the corner, here is one important exercise to help you realise that it's not a "difficult" game of knowledge, instead it's a relatively "easier" game of common sense application. Last year we went through this video, and then we took PYQ papers of different years to do this exercise ourselves to whatever extent possible.

If you do it properly, you'll crack the majority of questions even with incomplete knowledge or revision.

Chalta hai sab, bas paper mark kaise Krna hai iski practice karna is needed at this time!!

https://www.youtube.com/live/QEZU1BjhhO4?si=UP9vhk1zAEFt1zaQ

Hi everyone, this post is not exactly immediately relevant for the upcoming prelims.

But for others, geography mapping forms a crucial part of our foundation and we took a manual route for the same. Maybe the idea can be useful to some of you!

What we did exactly (took initial investment but was totally worth it over the years)

1) We plotted rivers, tributaries, hills/ ranges, mountain passes on one map and wrote the key at the back of the map. (This map includes all the small trivial details of ncert - e.g. - Shishapani gorge on ghaghara or if a river has two names etc.)

2) We got multiple photocopies of this map.

3) On one copy, we overlapped the map with red (Tiger reserves), yellow (National parks) and Green (Wildlife sanctuary) dots. We wrote the glossary again at the back of the map and kept on adding details to the glossary as we discovered important facts from PYQs or elsewhere.

4) On another copy, we did the same thing for ramsar sites and biosphere reserves.
At the back of this map, we made a table for ramsar sites (Artificial/natural; fresh/brackish/saline; rivers passing through and other details) and biosphere reserves (National parks and wildlife sanctuaries within them, rivers passing through)

We have had these 3 maps which might seem like manuscripts again due to their repeated reuse over past few attempts but they might be helpful if you would like to refer to them.

P.S. - We have had a thousand topper notes, maps with us but what actually benefited us was actively practicing things, brainstorming them ourselves. Thus approach matters, not the notes.

All the best everyone for tomorrow. Just remain calm and confident🤟

Some questions don't have an explanation due to recording issue! But answers are pinned in the coment below

"Anthropology kaise kare, kya alag kare?”
We get these questions a lot. Aisa kuch shortcut ya unique to pata nahi, but here's a gist of what works as per us.

Anthropology didn’t click for us as well in the first go. In our first attempt, we just read the book by Akshat Jain sir and thought ki time pe acchhe se present krke wahi likh dege and we'll get marks

But unlike GS where chasing marks works, here we felt a shift — it wasn’t just about marks anymore; it was about absorbing the feel of the subject. And once that switch happened, things started falling into place.

Of course, our comfort zone — Topper copy analysis (just like in the GS Mains post above) — continued here too!


📚 Resources we used -

1️⃣ Mandar Patki Sir, Narayan Amit Sir & Surbhi Goyal Ma’am’s Notes
2️⃣ Answer Copies of Asad Zuberi Sir, Shubham Kumar Sir, Narayan Amit Sir
3️⃣ Neha Goyal Ma’am’s Channel — Absolute goldmine for structured answers!
4️⃣ IGNOU + ePGPathshala — For deeper understanding, not just mugging.


🧠 Our Note-Making Strategy

✅ We sat down and analyzed every topic of syllabus, divided it into sub topics and tried to find sub-themes and recurrent questions using PYQs.
✅ Then, we made topic wise simple notes ensuring that all the sub-themes of syllabus that are recurrent in PYQs are covered
✅ Understanding > Overloading – It is not about hoarding fancy value addition content. Instead of that, we went the extra mile to get the concept correctly, many times (using YouTube videos, IGNOU or other sources)
✅ Short Notes = Lifesaver – Made tables, diagrams, and bullet formats after Prelims for quick revision. Ultimately inhi ko rat sakte hai!!


✍️ Answer Writing Strategy

🕒 Time-Bound Sets – We used to practise 35-minute sets (1/more at a time)
🎯 Karandeep Sir’s Test Series – The trick was to first watch his explanation videos, then attempt answers. Concepts bhi clear ho gye, Revise bhi ho gaya, likh bhi dia
⏱️ Watching Karandeep sir's time management video helped us immensely (it's on YouTube)

We’re attaching some sample notes, sample short notes, and our answer copies here. Maybe those will give you a better idea.

All the best everyone for CSE prelims result🙏🙏

Sample notes - Primates, Fossils, Tribals.pdf

Posting after a lot of days, but this is a gist of all we did for GS prelims and mains!!
Nothing too much, nothing fancy and nothing to be afraid of 🫣😇