CBSE Class 12th Political Science Study Tips

Greeting Readers as requested we have study tips for class 12^th Political Science :D by my friend Rahul Chaudhary. He scored 97 in political science board exam! This is our first feature blog hope you find this helpful.

Tip 1: NCERT is God
Each pol.sc. chapter is in itself a carefully explained story containing huge ( I admit ) but relevant information to the events that happen .Most if not all chapters have kind of a story. My personal favourite was the chapter which narrated Indira Gandhi's political battle to reclaim the might congress' lost power in the 1967 elections. How and why congress lost how Indira dealt with it and her major comeback is an awesome political plot I would never turn down.

Long story short: Use the NCERT as it narrates the story in the best way possible. NCERT gives you a kind of a ''script '' which you can further improve on using other guide books and sample papers.

Tip 2: NCERT First, then the guides:
As mentioned above, NCERT provides a fairly articulate ‘’story’’ of the chapter you can follow in a systematic and well understandable sequence. This sequence, you should know, is extremely important if you want to have long-term and stable knowledge of the chapters.
Rather than memorizing random questions and dates from the guides on the last day before the exam, give some time to the ‘’story ‘’ told in the NCERT. In the long-term this will be really benefiting, even if it doesn’t helps you immediately in the first UT’s (which, nobody gives a damn about except those petty little nerds who think everyone is supposed to be scoring good all the time.)

According to me this is the perfect way to go:

1.) Read NCERT ALONGWITH YOUR TEACHER
 ( I didn’t do this and then suffered  , that’s why I know this is important ) and whatever is taught in the school , revise it at home . Now you are not expected to memorise all the dates , political figures , countries , summits , meetings etc the very day they are taught but at least you would develop a fairly good idea as to what the chapter is about and basically ‘’class mein kya chal raha hai ? ‘’ (my personal favourite question)
This also allows you to give special attention to each single chapter rather than rushing through them and then mixing them up.

2.) After the chapter ends, give it a RE-READ on a free-day or a weekend, to know the entirety of the chapter’s events and ‘’story ‘’.

3.)  Now hit the guides. This will help you know what kinds of questions can be posed and regarding which part of the chapter, which questions are more relevant and will let you have an idea of what kind of and how the language of the answer is to be. Pro tip: Try to be better than even the guides, even though if it’s just by a notch.

3.) Big words work, but not all the time.
You gotta have the bookish and technical language in your mind to make your answer look more technical, informative to let the teacher know that you are through with the bookish vocabulary. The teachers openly say that you need to have the bookish language to get the upper hand. I am not personally a fan of writing long and complicated answers when they can be simple, but desperate measures for desperate times. Bookish language works wonder 90% of the time.

But then again your answer should also have some sense and cohesiveness in it. It should not be just random information being thrown like holi balloons. It should be a systematic, well-written answer with a sequence.

4.) Maps, Boxes, Table, Graphs.
The notorious map questions and 5 markers are the area where you must know all about the maps, boxes, tables, graphs etc provided in the NCERT. These often include newspaper clippings, cartoons, images, maps, (extremely brief) descriptions of important personalities. The 5 markers are where I am sure I lost my marks because I never focused enough on all this stuff just because it was not a part of the main text.

5.) The most cliché: Regular study
I don’t even need to explain this. Everyone must have since... like... the 6th standard.
Revise what you have been taught at school , don’t be shy to ask doubts , go to the teacher personally if you think some douches will make fun of you for asking a particular doubt . No doubt is TOO small. 
6.) Other tips:

i.) Do sample papers. First try to attempt 50 markers with 2-3 chapters.  Then the next bunch of chapters with the same format. After you’ve done all the chapters, try to do 100 marks’ papers with the entire book.

ii.) Try to understand chapters are now evaluative questions are too a part of the paper format. Evaluative questions are the ones which don’t have a specific answer to them. You cannot use the ‘copy-paste ‘strategy in these questions as they require understanding of the chapter, context. In some cases you may even be needed to be well aware of how each chapter (from both the books) correlates to the other chapter (across both the books).  The chapter on planned economy, rise of popular movements have a common link: agricultural growth and focusing on rural agricultural groups (farmers).  US’ hegemony helps in understanding globalization better.

iii.) Last but not the last, don’t neglect any question just because it was ‘’ never there in any of the sample papers or last year’s paper ‘’. Yes, there are some important questions that should be your first priority in the short run, but to be safe in the long run, every question should be in your mind and the answer for it.

By

Rahul Chaudhary

Additional Tips by Yoshita Mehta

#Reading is the best way along with your teachers, bench-mates etc so that you should understand the depth of each and every chapter.

• For world book 

1. One should surely makes lists of the events happened along with countries, dates and additional information.

2. Make side notes or write on sticky paper so that you remember the relevant part with the text, that notes can be followed with examples or important questions for better understanding.

• For India book 

1. It's a must to work on the cartoons because they are a little difficult for students who never watched news as in textbooks we have different faces which are similar to the political figures. Ask your teacher the story behind every cartoon or use a guide find those cartoons and make a side note describing the cartoon.

2. Step notes with connecting chapter , most of the chapters are connected to each other but some are independent in themselves , so while preparing for the exam one should separately prepare for those chapters.

Note: Words of your teachers are not less than bible .. one should drink the mixture as a whole.

Additional Tips by Sagrika Behl


I think I should mention the names of reference books!
1. Together with Pol sci
2. U like Sample Papers
3. For cartoons, maps, paragraph questions JPH but just for those, question answers are irrelevant in this book!
And yeah while studying the chapters have a tiny small notebook in hand and keep writing names and events as they come by. It will prove to be very useful for you while revision.
That’s all

Mail me your thoughts at dolcereflection@gmail.com
And message me your queries at same.
Comment if you found this post helpful or if you want me to add something else :)

Regards,

Sagrika Behl