History produced 220 of the 1,300 questions UPSC asked in GS Paper I between 2014 and 2026 — 16.9% of the paper, about 16.9 questions a year, and the 2nd largest of 7 subjects. Its thinnest year gave 10 questions and its heaviest 22, which is the range your preparation has to survive.
Recent direction: the last four papers averaged 15 against 16.8 in the first four — falling.
One line of syllabus, 16 distinguishable topics. This is the part the syllabus text cannot tell you.
Difficulty is our own tagging, not UPSC's — the Commission publishes no difficulty label.
Consistently one of the three largest blocks. Art and culture is not named in the syllabus line at all, and yet it appears every year — the topic breakdown below shows how much.
Counted from 1,300 UPSC Prelims GS questions, 2014–2026, each tagged to a topic by UPSC Answer Check. Question papers: Union Public Service Commission.
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