Social Studies/Social Science
Social Studies/Social Science in CG TET Paper 2 tests history, geography, civics, and economics content plus pedagogy for Classes VI–VIII.
Content core
History requires primary versus secondary sources, chronology, cause and consequence, Ashokan edicts, Mughal administration, colonial economy, and the freedom movement. Geography covers latitude and longitude, grid references, scale, contours, landforms, climate, and resources. Civics includes the Constitution, fundamental rights, Directive Principles, fundamental duties, Parliament, judiciary, federalism, and the 73rd and 74th Amendments. Economics includes production, factors of production, markets, money, banking, and poverty.
Pedagogy
Use inquiry, source analysis, timelines, map skills, case studies, and perspective-taking. Discuss controversial issues with evidence rather than avoiding them. Assess map interpretation, source evaluation, and conceptual understanding, not only recall. Avoid anachronism-do not judge the past only by present norms.
Worked example
A map has a scale of 1:50,000, and two places are 4 cm apart. 1 cm on the map = 50,000 cm = 500 m = 0.5 km. Therefore 4 cm = 2 km. Reasoning: convert centimetres to kilometres by dividing by 100,000, then multiply by the measured map distance. At 1:25,000, the same 4 cm would represent 1 km.
Traps
Confusing latitude with longitude; failing to convert scale units; assuming a primary source means an old book; reducing the Constitution to fundamental rights alone; equating democracy with elections only; confusing the 73rd Amendment (panchayats) with the 74th (municipalities); treating maps as neutral representations.