Hello students,

Here we are coming with our old-faithful DAMP course. It is called as Daily Answer Writing and Mentorship Program

This is the program we have been running for over 4 years since 2020-21, and hundreds of students of History Optional have benefitted. However, in recent months, we had paused it for some time due to introduction of HOT500. Even then, students kept asking for it.

Tbh, I was initially surprised by this consistent requests and tried to avoid them. It is not easy to be a history teacher and updating content all the time with so much explosion of new things around. But after a detailed discussion with Vishal sir, we decided to re-launch it with upgrades.

It's features are simple. Three months program, which gives you schedule for studying/revising optional in a disciplined manner. It also gives daily targets to cover the syllabus properly. There is a 24 hour window for submission of answer, every day, which inculcates habit of regular answer writing. After that you get evaluation, feedback, model answers and video discussion. And then there are 2 full length tests (FLTs) too.

Watching merely the foundation lectures doesn't help if we don't do some regular answer writing practice. Also, directly going to write full tests is a very daunting task. This program is that crucial middle link which makes foundation learning strong, improves answer writing, and makes you ready to write full length tests.

No more delaying your answer writing practice. D in DAMP stands for Daily. It really helps in long term. Initial few days are difficult if you have never done any answer writing. But once you get into habit it, that would the moment of your 'arrival'.

And then both Vishal sir and Me are available for personal mentoring as well. The M in DAMP stands for that Mentorship.

Vishal sir has explained the featurs here:
https://youtu.be/P32NWPuBZ3g?si=fD9UxuChfaDLr0VN

The webpage link for the details is here https://www.levelupias.com/upsc-history-optional-daily-answer-writing-damp

Hope to see many among you there. Every day from 17th of March.

Nikhil

For all admin related info and course related inquiries, please contact the institute.
Here is the information https://www.levelupias.com/contacts/ They will help out quickly.

Let's keep this platform for history related discussion. I would prefer to not answer admin related queries as far as possible here on this platform.

This is an open platform for everyone's learning. This not a place to resolve your individual doubts about courses and handouts/material. Lets try to use it only when it helps all of us. For personal doubts please get in touch with the institute.

I hope everyone understands and agrees.

Nikhil

Both Vishal sir and Me are going to record strategy vidoes to guide aspirants preparing for 2026 with History Optional. We are going to begin with the following sources related videos first.

1. Sources for Ancient India
2. Sources for Medieval India
3. Sources for Modern India
4. Sources for World History

These videos will appear on YT.

If you want us to answer any specific query with respect to these 4 topics, please write in the comment. We will make sure to involve the points in our discussion.

Nikhil

https://youtu.be/6qpbxBa-M3M

This is the first 10 days schedule for HOT500 - Modern India section.

Over and above these questions, we also add about 1-2 questions every day in the class for discussion. These additional questions are generally totally new, and challenge the boundaries of traditional understanding of the students.

Moreover, our main focus is on historiography of the questions, and how to develop perspective and insight into the demand of the questions. Students often mistake GS for Optional in Modern India and dont understand how it is more analytical. That is something we try to learn in the classes.

In a 2.5-hours lecture, we are able to cover the detailed discussion of about 9-10 questions every day. For Modern India, there will be about 23 lectures, in which we are trying to cover about 230-240 questions in class.

We are sure it will be immensely beneficial to students.

I have received this query a few times in the past. Will there be coverage of Art and Culture on Youtube?

Response:
There is no separate subject called Art and Culture in History Optional. The foundation course on Youtube is only for History Optional, not for GS. By and large it is sufficient for General studies also.

However, Art and Culture in GS is a slightly different thing. It needs more facts, more aspects, and deeper understanding, than what we need in Optional. So, for GS, we have to do more of AnC than what we do for optional.

That additional aspect we cover in our GS courses - either Foundation course or Prelims crash course (PMP). Those courses are not for Youtube as the specific YT channel was started for History Optional in a dedicated fashion. Its objective is very specific and not generic.

Some questions are quite good from this paper, especially more so in Paper I than in Paper II. Paper I questions are more analytical while Paper II questions are more factual and direct.

If you want to discuss some questions, that would be a more constructive use of this platform here.