GS 1 strategy and sources

GS 1 paper is one of the easiest papers as it has a defined syllabus and should be prepared first. Please have a look at last years question papers to understand the type of questions asked. This should be done for all the papers to have a concrete strategy for preparation. 

My sources for this paper are as follows:

Indian Heritage and Culture, History and Geography of the World and Society.

(i) Indian culture will cover the salient aspects of Art Forms, literature and Architecture from ancient to modern times.

Source: Old and new NCERTS of ancient and medieval India, currents affairs art and culture, CCRT material, new fine arts NCERT

Approach: For mains, focus should be on contribution to Indian art, architecture and literature by different dynasties and during different periods like Gupta, Mauryan, Mughals, Indus Valley people. Vijaynagar kingdom etc. Focus on broad questions like features of buddhist architecture, difference between north Indian and south Indian temples etc

Answer writing: try drawing maps, features of art and architecture to highlight important points. For eg: In the question on Gandhar art, I had actually drawn the Buddha face roughly and marked Greeco Roman features like curly hairs, half open eyes, perspective of shadow, urna between eyebrows etc

Fine arts NCERT

Old Medieval NCERT

Old Ancient NCERT

Old NCERT Medieval

This is to show you how we made notes in NCERT itself...We used to study just the underlined or written part in subsequent readings.

(ii) Modern Indian history from about the middle of the eighteenth century until the present- significant events, personalities, issues.

Source: Both Bipin Chandra books as mentioned in prelims strategy

Approach: As is said in the syllabus itself, focus more on important events, contribution by different personalities like different Viceroys, the last mughal emperors, the regional kings who founded new states like Hyderabad, Mysore, Travancore , Marathas, Rajputs etc; important events like fall of Mughals, the Anglo Indian wars etc, development of Indian education system, the modern army, civil services and other such things.

Answer Writing: If you can remember and mention different dates along with your answer and include examples, that would be great.

(iii) The Freedom Struggle — its various stages and important contributors/contributions from different parts of the country.

Source: Both Bipin Chandra Books (See the link in the end to understand how notes were made)

Approach: As mentioned in the syllabus, focus on sections of society like contribution of women, of children, of dalits, of tribals, of moderates, of extremists etc. Focus on contribution of different parts of India like north east, north India and south India, princely states vs the British governed regions, how struggles were different for these regions and what methodologies did they adopt, contribution of Gnadhiji, difference between important personalities like Sardar Patel, Nehru or Nehru vs Bose etc. Please  follow the news to see what is important for that year. For eg: Sardar Patel became important when his statue was inaugurated or north east became important was Rani Gaidinliu's birth centenary celebrations were inaugurated by PM Modi

Answer Writing: Mention dates and names of people where relevant. For eg: a question on extremists cannot go without mentioning Lal, Bal, Pal..

(iv) Post-independence consolidation and reorganization within the country.

Source: First few chapters from India since Independence by Bipin Chandra and Class XII NCERT : Politics in India since Independence

Approach : Focus again on broader questions like changes in administration, reorganization of states, Wars with Pakistan and China, food crisis and Green revolution, conduct of elections and how the freedom struggle played a role in development of different political parties, our industrial policies etc. Try studying the NCERT mentioned religiously. Each and every event mentioned in this book is important and you can read a few wiki pages if you need elaboration and make your own short notes.

Answer writing: Use maps, dates , names of people for brownie points.

Points made in the NCERT itself

(v) History of the world will include events from 18th century such as industrial revolution, world wars, redrawal of national boundaries, colonization, decolonization, political philosophies like communism, capitalism, socialism etc.— their forms and effect on the society.

Source: Class XI NCERT for Industrial Revolution, Old NCERT Arjun Dev

Approach : They have asked all sorts of questions from this part. So you have to study the entire book.

Answer writing: Draw rough world maps (see Norman Lowe and NCERT to get a guide on how you can depict events on maps), use names and dates as much as possible

Making notes in NCERT itself

As history involves explaining events in time, its always advisable to mention dates and years (at least roughly, don't mention wrong although). Maps definitely make your answers more appealing :)

(vi) Salient features of Indian Society, Diversity of India.

Source: Class XII NCERT, Indian Society, Current Affairs, Vision IAS supplementary material

Approach : Read NCERT thoroughly and with understanding. For eg: Cast system is a prominent feature of Indian society. Try to answer questions like what is caste system, how it evolved, how it has created social problems like discrimination, untouchability against dalits, how it had deprived them of education, health , how lower caste groups have different norms and culture than higher caste ones, what steps have been taken by govt to address this starting with constitutional provisions, legal provisions, reservations etc . Also how reservation has helped and also led to new conflicts. All what I want to say is that prepare a topic comprehensively and from all possible sociological angles as mentioned.

Answer writing: Use reports and statistics to bolster your argument, draw flow charts or diagrams, give examples 

(vii) Role of women and women’s organization, population and associated issues, poverty and developmental issues, urbanization, their problems and their remedies.

(viii) Effects of globalization on Indian society.

(ix) Social empowerment, communalism, regionalism & secularism.

Source: for all of the above three topics -> Current affairs, IGNOU pdfs 

Approach: Prepare notes covering these topics from sociological angles like definition of poverty, causes of poverty, vicious circle of poverty, communities most affected, issues such as ghettoisation, economics of poverty etc etc. These topics have also been covered in the other sociology NCERT of classXII. 

Answer writing: Use the different reports and indices like multidimensional poverty index, all indices related to women, different reports of Ministry of urban affairs extensively in this part for introduction to highlight the importance of the issue being answered. Try drawing simple diagrams and flowcharts. Search vicious cycle of poverty diagram and you will get an idea of what I am talking about.Something like this :

Please see the link also for some sample notes of sociology ncert books.

(x) Salient features of world’s physical geography.

Source: Geography is my optional therefore never had to prepare this. Read NCERT Physical Geography really well for this part and if needed, then can see some topics from a standard book like Savinder singh

(xi) Distribution of key natural resources across the world (including South Asia and the Indian sub-continent); factors responsible for the location of primary, secondary, and tertiary sector industries in various parts of the world (including India).

Source: Human Geography NCERT, Indian economic Geography NCERT and Goh Che Leong should be more than enough

(xii) Important Geophysical phenomena such as earthquakes, Tsunami, Volcanic activity, cyclone etc., geographical features and their location-changes in critical geographical features (including water-bodies and ice-caps) and in flora and fauna and the effects of such changes.

Source: IMD Faqs for all these phenomena are more than sufficient combined with geography NCERTs of class XI and XII

Answer writing: Answer questions from all geographical angles . You can remember geography  optional Paper 2 syllabus for this purpose. It will help you give appropriate headings. For eg: for a question on river valley project, you can make points like effect on terrain, discharge of rivers, on resources, environmental effects , cultural effects, political effects etc (these are all mentioned in the syllabus if you notice)

Some of the sample notes for history and art and culture have been uploaded in prelims folder itself. Some more sample notes can be seen here in this link. I don't have access to all my books and notes as of now. 

https://drive.google.com/drive/folders/1kG9uMEhh4q3_IV0_vn5PhECjGBP5vozA?usp=sharing

Let me know if you have any further doubts.