Selfstudyhistory.com’s Interview of PRINCE BARWAL [Rank 401, CSE- 2025, History Optional]

Profile of the Candidate

Introduction

(1) Tell us something about yourself. 

• Prince Barwal- from Jaipur, Rajasthan. Did my graduation in History and Economics from Hindu College. And further masters in history from DU.

Questions Related to History Optional

(2) Why did you choose history as your optional subject?

• I Choose History as it was my graduation subject and I had a good degree of command and clarity over it. Since i already studied it in Graduation so covering the syllabus was also easier for me.

(3) Kindly mention positive and negative about the History Optional for those who what to take history optional.

• Positives in History I would say that it’s mainly static so you don’t have to worry about things changing. And it’s also very easy to understand.
• A Big Negative for History is its vast syllabus which takes some time and effort to cover.

(4) Kindly mention booklist and sources which you followed for History Optional.

• For Ancient India- Upinder Singh. For medieval india – Satish Chandra, For Modern India- Shekhar Bandopadhyay and Bipin Chandra, World History from Norman Lowe. Mapping from Self Study History Mapping Material
• Apart from these, I had college notes which really added to the quality of my notes. I also referred to Toppers’ answer copies for value addition in my notes.

(5) In Paper I and II, you answered 3 questions from Part A or Part B?

• In both papers, I answered 3 questions from Part A.

(6) How did you prepare for Map Portion?

• From Self Study History’s Mapping material and added some more current sites through Google Maps.

(7) How much time per day you used to give the history optional during your preparation (both before and after prelims)?

• Before Prelims usually around 3 hours. But after Prelims, around 4 hours in a day.

(8) Did you do answer writing regularly? If yes, what amount of time you devoted to it and how did it help you?

• I was not regular in writing answers. In fact, i never practiced answer writing as such separately, i already had the habit of writing answers from my college days. So I focused more on giving a test in a week and used to check it myself. Giving a test in a week allowed me to consolidate my knowledge and facts and improving on my answers quality.

(9) Did you maintain self-notes? If yes, how did it help you?

• Yes, i had my own notes. Since I made them myself, it was easier for me to revise and refine them. And during mains, i didn’t had to scramble across books. I simply revised my notes which I think saved a lot of time.

(10) Have you solved previous years papers of history optional? Did it help you in the examination?

• Yes, PYQs are very important. Since syllabus is static, so the themes and questions also gets repeated. I used to analyse and solve them which improved my answer writing and helped me in revision.

(11) In your views, how the nature of questions asked in history optional changed in recent years?

• This is something I noticed in last few years. Now the questions are more analytical. Sometimes 2-3 themes are asked in a single question and focus is more on how these themes are interlinked. So i would say focus more on the interlinkages in the syllabus and prepare accordingly.

(12) Were you asked questions related to History in interview? If yes, kindly mention those.

• Yes, a question on Eurocentricism was asked. And its political and economic impact.

(13) How did selfstudyhistory.com benefitted you in your History Optional Preparation?

• Its mapping material was very useful and i also prepared some minor themes through self study history’s notes.

(14) Any specific thing you want to share about history optional?

• A very good subject which will also help in Essay, GS 1 and ethics paper. But will require time and effort to cover it. So go for it if you can do that.