A Complete Guide to Acing your Social Studies Exam

You have seen our post on the most important topics from Class 10 Social Studies for your CBSE Board Exam 2018. In continuance of that, we have for you, an exclusive, detailed manual on how to make sure you give your best in the exam. Here’s a series of tips and tricks to ace your preparation for your SST exam this year, prepared by the expert faculty at Meritnation. Read on to better your preparation game!

History

1. Since studying History involves memorising a lot of information, it is necessary that you test your knowledge before facing the real exam. Bearing this in mind, multiple choice tests are a simple yet effective way to check if you have memorised specific info correctly.
   Ask your friends and classmates to share their quizzes with you and this way you’ll benefit from their perspective too.
   

2. History exams include specific questions relating to key dates and names. This means that some memorisation skills are required and should be part of your learning process when studying history. Flashcards are a great tool in such cases as they allow you to quickly test your levels of retention and quickly recap.

3. Books and notes often cover events in a lot of detail. In most cases, it’s not necessary to memorise a large catalogue of notes on a topic. Instead, it’s best to establish a connection between the facts. The events should follow a logical order to help you understand and memorise them, so the use of mind maps can be quite helpful when visualising all this information at a glance and whenever you’re recapping for an exam.

4. While reading a chapter, search for what is and isn’t important. Also, if you know how to link facts, studies can be much easier. The three ways of remembering events are as follows:
   1) Temporal (this event happened after that other event)
   2) Causal (this event happened because of that other event)
   3) Spatial (this event happened near that other event)

5. You should also remember that history is never possible without geography. You need to have a good grasp of where the event has happened. Keep a map opened while studying history. try to locate the places on the map. In this way not not will your studies be more interesting but you base too would be stronger.

6. At the end of every chapter, try to summarise it. This will not only help you recollect what you have studied but will help you to remember the chapter as per your understanding too.

7. While writing answers in your history exam, do not write lengthy answers. Try to answer to the point. Avoid writing answers in long paragraphs. Write as many points as the marks dedicated for the answer demands. This means if it is three marker question, simply write three points and explain them.

8. Videos can help you visualise an era or event.They may stimulate an interest but unless you engage in some questioning of the experience we have to ask ourselves is whether what you are learning is really an effective way of learning history or not. Movies such as Modern Times and The Boy in Striped Pajamas will help students understand the situation during the Industrial Revolution and Nazi rule, respectively.

9. History is nothing but elaborate stories. Read as if it is an epic tale with multiple characters.
   
10. Chapters like ‘Making A Global World’ has very few events to memorise. Answers are more subjective in nature. Explanatory answers need to be prepared. Try to prepare answers according to subtopics. For example:
    Role of technology in the development of world
    
    We may prepare the answers as per the following points:
    
    1) Providing Mobility
    2) Facilitating Trade
    3) Increase in Cultural Interaction
    4) Evolution of Society
11. In the chapter, ‘Work, Life and Leisure’, answers comparing the three cities will be very common. So try to trace the common elements between the three and the differences in their growth pattern too. Once you start reading the chapter, prepare tables to compare the development of the three cities: London, Paris and Bombay. This will not only help you to remember the chapter but also establish a link between the dates provided.
    
    
12. In the chapter, “Print Culture and the Modern World’, discuss the link between print culture and the circulation of ideas.

• Show that forms of writing have a specific history, and that they reflect historical changes within society and shape the forces of change.
• Familiarize yourself with some of the ideas of writers who have had a powerful impact on society.
• Get familiar with pictures, cartoons, extracts from propaganda literature and newspaper debates on important events and issues in the pas. this will help you make learning fun. Also, it will help you to get prepared with “Make Notes”
• Try to frame answers to trace forms of writing have a specific history, and that they reflect historical changes within society and shape the forces of change.
• Makes notes of important writers and their contribution. It is essential to get Familiarized with some of the ideas of writers who have had a powerful impact on society.

Geography

1. Beyond just relying on the traditional ways to memorise information, here are some ideas that you can put into effect to help you become a wiz at recalling important geographic information:

• Mnemonics, mind maps, colour coding, visual patterns and diagramming help you when working on geographic terms.
• Focusing on shortcuts and ways to identify the information is a must for a topic like geography that can involve a long list of names, locations, and situational location.
• It is important to try a number of devices to see which one works specifically for you as you may not find that a technique another student works for you as well.
• Focus on materials that offer diagrams, pictures, maps and colours rather than just text. This is why flowcharts, mind maps, tables and tree diagrams work so much more effectively with the human brains, especially when it comes to geography where you may also be tested on a country’s shape or certain images that are presented for you to offer an answer on what country or city it might be found in.

Civics

1. Try to relate and understand the concepts of Civics with everyday facts of life. For example, the concept of Diversity. Observe how many diverse students are there in your class, etc.
2. Group studies also help to recall and understand the chapters easily.
3. Have discussions with your parents and friends on present topics like- politics, government’s efficiency, rights of the citizens, etc. This will help you enhance your knowledge and opinion apart from textbook reading.
4.  Watch news on television and read newspapers on currents events.
5. Organise activities in your class where you can have discussions or debates with your teachers and classmates on the chapter or a short drama where you can enact out a chapter.
6. Class participation and taking down notes in the class is also very important and helpful. Make a summary of the chapter.
   

Economics

1. Being a practical subject and a subject based on real life situations, there is a lot of scope to ask questions such as “if” and “but”? So play with the facts. This will help you to expand the scope of your understanding.
2. Test Yourself Frequently.The key to learning is active engagement in the material. The real test is to close all books and just put a question on a blank sheet of paper. Write what you can, but then go back and check.
3. Do a certain amount of written work. This is the best test to make sure you are on the right track. Don’t count the number of hours sitting at a desk, but count papers written or topics where you have improved your learning.
4. Believe it or not, play a board game called “Monopoly”. No game can be as useful to make you understand the basic concept of Economics as this one.
5. Watch some movies to understand some economics concepts:
   

1. Death of a Salesman (Arthur Miller, 1949) – Choice of profession, sense of self worth based on economic performance;
2. Grapes of Wrath (John Steinbeck, 1939) – Property rights, migration, trade unions;
3. Oliver Twist (Charles Dickens, 1838) – Economics of crime, economics of charities;
4. Rogue Trader (James Dearden, 1999) /Wall Street (Oliver Stone, 1987) – Psychology of financial markets;
5. Balkanizateur (Sotiris Goritsas, 1998) – Efficiency of capital markets;
6. La Terra Trema (Luchino Visconti, 1948) – Poverty, risks of entrepreneurship;
7. Mother India (Mehboob Khan, 1957) – Rural financial markets in poor countries;
8. Pride and Prejudice (Jane Austen, 1813) – Economics of dowries, economics of inheritance.

You can also revise with these extensive resources:

Previous Year Papers for CBSE Class 10 Board Exams (2006 – 2017)

Paper Analysis for CBSE Class 10 Board Exams 2016

Paper Analysis for CBSE Class 10 Board Exams 2017

Have you downloaded the CBSE Board Paper Solutions App by Meritnation? It is the smartest way to prepare for Class 10 Board Exams and Class 12 Board Exams. A FREE App with previous Years’ Board Papers, (from 2006 -2017) this App makes preparing for Board Exams easy. Download App

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Team Meritnation