Class 8 · 8th standard · 2026-27

Class 8 Social Science worksheets, free, with every answer on the page

Three free Class 8 Social Science worksheets - one each for History, Geography and Civics - with every question and every answer printed on this page rather than behind a download. They are written slightly deeper than the Class 8 paper strictly requires, and deliberately so: most of this content is examined again in Class 10, so the extra depth costs almost nothing now and saves a term later. Every exercise opens with one question worked through in full.

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3 worksheets · 77 questions · every answer on the page · no sign-up · aligned to NCERT's Class 8 Social Science books are used in CBSE schools, and school-chosen texts elsewhere. These sheets are written to the reasoning rather than to one book's chapters.

What these practise

The expansion of Company rule from Plassey to the Doctrine of Lapse
Colonial land revenue systems and whose interest they served
The immediate cause of 1857 against its underlying causes
Why the revolt failed, and what changed after it
Renewable and non-renewable resources, with the conditions attached
Crop conditions and why crops grow where they do
Why industries are located where they are
Fundamental Rights applied to real situations
Why the Constitution has federalism, secularism and separation of powers
How a bill becomes law, and criminal against civil cases

Last updated 2026-07-29

Free, with answers

The worksheets themselves

Every question is on this page, and so is every answer. Nothing is behind a sign-up, and there is no file to download unless you want one - use the print button on any sheet to save it as a PDF.

practice · medium · 30 min

Company rule and the revolt of 1857

Class 8 Social Science · History · 22 questions with answers

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Class 8 History is the story of how a trading company came to govern a subcontinent, and almost every question about it is really asking the same thing: whose interest did this serve? A policy named without its motive is half an answer here, and it is exactly half an answer again in Class 10, where all of this returns.

Places the main events of Company expansion in order
Explains a colonial policy by the interest it served
Gives both immediate and underlying causes of the revolt
States what changed after 1857 and what did not

Exercise 1 of 3 · 5 questions

Put these in chronological order and give the year for each.

Put in order · Warm-up

Here’s one done for you

1757 and 1857 are the two anchors, exactly a century apart, and almost everything in this book sits between them. Plassey is where a trading company first becomes a political power; the revolt is where Company rule ends. A child who holds those two dates can place most of the rest by reasoning rather than by memory.

1)A. The Permanent Settlement is introduced in Bengal
2)B. The Battle of Plassey
3)C. The revolt begins at Meerut
4)D. The Battle of Buxar
5)E. The Indian National Congress is founded

Answers

1) B (1757), D (1764), A (1793), C (1857), E (1885). Plassey gave the Company its first real political foothold in Bengal; Buxar confirmed it; the Diwani followed in 1765.

Exercise 2 of 3 · 9 questions

Name the policy, then say whose interest it served and how.

Write the answer · Guided

Here’s one done for you

The Doctrine of Lapse: a ruler without a natural heir could not adopt one, so the state lapsed to the Company. Notice that the answer explains what it achieved - annexation without a war. Naming the policy is a mark. Saying whose interest it served is the answer, and it is also how a child reconstructs the policy in an exam hall having half-forgotten the name.

1)The Subsidiary Alliance
2)The Doctrine of Lapse
3)The Permanent Settlement of 1793
4)Colonial education policy in English
5)The Ryotwari Settlement
6)The de-industrialisation of Indian handloom weaving
7)The Forest Acts of the colonial period
8)Recruiting Indian sepoys into the Company army
9)The building of railways from the 1850s

Answers

1) Indian rulers who accepted it had to keep a British force and pay for it, and could not make alliances without British permission. It gave the Company control over a state's foreign policy and army without the cost of conquering it.
2) A ruler without a natural heir could not adopt one, so the state passed to the Company. It allowed annexation without fighting, and was used to take Satara, Jhansi and Nagpur among others.
3) Revenue was fixed permanently with zamindars, who owed a set amount whatever the harvest. It guaranteed the Company a predictable income and shifted the whole risk of a bad year onto cultivators and zamindars.
4) It was shaped by what the administration needed - clerks and officials who could work in English at low cost. It also carried the assumption that European learning was superior, which was part of its purpose rather than a side effect.
5) Revenue was collected directly from the cultivator. It served the Company, which got its money without a landlord in between, and it left the ryot bearing the whole risk of a failed harvest.
6) British machine-made cloth was let in cheaply while Indian cloth faced duties in Britain. It served British mill owners, and it destroyed the livelihood of weavers across India.
7) They reserved forests for state use and restricted grazing, hunting and shifting cultivation. They served the demand for timber for ships and railways, and they cut forest communities off from land they had always used.
8) It gave the Company a very large army at low cost. It served British expansion, and it left the sepoys poorly paid and subject to rules that ignored their customs - a grievance that fed 1857.
9) They carried raw cotton and other materials to the ports and British goods inland. They served British trade far more than Indian producers, though they did also connect distant parts of India.

Exercise 3 of 3 · 8 questions

Answer in three or four sentences.

Write the answer · Practice

Here’s one done for you

The greased cartridges are the immediate cause, and the word 'immediate' is doing the work. Examiners ask this precisely to see whether a child can distinguish the spark from the fuel. A revolt of that size does not happen over cartridges; it happens over decades of annexation, revenue and interference, and the cartridges are what set it off. Getting that distinction right is worth more than any number of remembered dates.

1)What was the immediate cause of the revolt, and why was it only the immediate one?
2)Give three underlying causes of the revolt of 1857.
3)Why did the revolt fail despite spreading so widely?
4)What changed in the government of India after 1857?
5)Why did the revolt spread so quickly through north India in 1857?
6)Why did some Indian rulers and groups not join the revolt?
7)What role did rumour play in 1857?
8)Why is 1857 called different things by different historians?

Answers

1) The greased cartridges for the new Enfield rifle, which sepoys had to bite and which were rumoured to be greased with cow and pig fat. It was the immediate cause because it was the spark rather than the fuel - the discontent it set alight had been building for decades over annexations, revenue demands and interference in social custom.
2) Political: annexations under the Subsidiary Alliance and the Doctrine of Lapse left rulers dispossessed. Economic: heavy land revenue ruined cultivators, and Indian crafts declined under competition from British manufactures. Social and religious: reforms and missionary activity were widely felt as interference in custom and faith.
3) Because it had no single leadership or common plan - each centre fought under its own leader, and the rebels shared what they were against more than what they wanted instead. Large parts of the country did not join, several Indian rulers supported the British, and the Company had better organisation, communications and weapons.
4) The East India Company's rule ended and India came directly under the British Crown by the Government of India Act of 1858. A Secretary of State for India was appointed, the Governor-General became the Viceroy, and the Queen's Proclamation promised no further annexations and non-interference in religion - though the essential fact of foreign rule did not change.
5) Because grievances had built up for decades among sepoys, peasants, artisans and dispossessed rulers, so the cartridge issue set light to something already dry. Sepoys moved between garrisons and carried the revolt with them.
6) Because some had gained from British rule or feared losing what they had. Rulers such as the Sindhia of Gwalior and groups like the newly educated professional classes had more to lose than to gain from a Mughal restoration.
7) A very large one. Stories that the government intended to convert Indians to Christianity, and the specific rumour about the greased cartridges, gave scattered grievances a single shared meaning and made action seem urgent.
8) Because what people call it reflects what they think it was. Colonial writers called it a mutiny to reduce it to a military matter; Indian nationalists called it the First War of Independence; many historians now treat it as a series of linked revolts with different aims in different places.

While your child works

Ask 'whose interest did this serve?' after every policy. It turns a list of acts into something reconstructable.
Immediate cause and underlying causes are different questions. Children answer both with the cartridges, and lose the second.
This chapter returns in Class 10 almost unchanged. Learning it properly now is doing two years' work at once.

Open the History worksheet on its own page

practice · medium · 25 min

Resources, agriculture and industries

Class 8 Social Science · Geography · 30 questions with answers

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Class 8 Geography looks like a list of crops and minerals and is not. Almost every question asks why something is where it is - why rice grows in the east, why steel plants sit near coalfields, why a resource is called renewable. Answers that name without explaining lose exactly half, every time.

Classifies a resource as renewable or non-renewable and says why
States the conditions a crop needs and links them to where it grows
Explains why an industry is located where it is
Distinguishes agro-based from mineral-based industries

Exercise 1 of 3 · 12 questions

Renewable or non-renewable? Give the reason.

Write the answer · Warm-up

Here’s one done for you

Forests are the interesting one, and the answer deserves the qualification. Trees regrow, so a forest is renewable - but only if it is cut no faster than it regenerates. Cleared faster than that and it behaves exactly like a non-renewable resource. A child who writes 'renewable' and stops has the label; a child who adds the condition has the idea the chapter is actually about.

1)Solar energy
2)Coal
3)Forests
4)Petroleum
5)Wind
6)Iron ore
7)Natural gas
8)Tidal energy
9)Groundwater
10)Copper ore
11)Biomass
12)Uranium

Answers

1) Renewable - it is replenished continuously and cannot be exhausted by use.
2) Non-renewable - it took millions of years to form, so it cannot be replaced within any useful human timescale.
3) Renewable, but conditionally - trees regrow, though only if felling is slower than replanting. Cleared faster than that, a forest behaves like a non-renewable resource.
4) Non-renewable - a fossil fuel formed over millions of years, and its stock is finite.
5) Renewable - it is generated continuously by the heating of the atmosphere and does not run down with use.
6) Non-renewable - a mineral deposit that took geological time to form and is not replaced once extracted.
7) Non-renewable - it formed over millions of years and cannot be replaced once used.
8) Renewable - the tides are caused by the moon and will keep occurring.
9) Renewable in principle, since rain refills it, but only if it is taken out no faster than it is replaced.
10) Non-renewable - the ore in the ground is a fixed quantity.
11) Renewable - crops, wood and dung are produced continuously.
12) Non-renewable - it is mined from the earth and cannot be made again.

Exercise 2 of 3 · 10 questions

Name the conditions the crop needs, and one region where it is grown.

Write the answer · Guided

Here’s one done for you

Tea needs a warm, moist climate and well-drained sloping land - and the second half is the part that explains the map. Tea is grown on hill slopes because standing water rots the roots, which is why Assam and Darjeeling rather than the flat plains. Conditions and location belong in the same answer; either one alone is half of it.

1)Rice
2)Wheat
3)Tea
4)Jute
5)Cotton
6)Sugarcane
7)Coffee
8)Maize
9)Millets (bajra and jowar)
10)Rubber

Answers

1) High temperature above about 25°C, high humidity and heavy rainfall over 100 cm. A kharif crop, grown in West Bengal, the eastern plains and the coastal regions.
2) Moderate temperature and rainfall while growing, with bright sunshine at harvest. A rabi crop, grown in Punjab, Haryana and Uttar Pradesh.
3) Warm, moist climate with well-drained sloping land, since standing water damages the roots. Grown in Assam and around Darjeeling.
4) High temperature, heavy rainfall and alluvial soil. Grown mainly in West Bengal, and called the golden fibre.
5) High temperature, light rainfall, bright sunshine and a long frost-free period, with black soil suiting it well. Grown in Maharashtra, Gujarat and parts of the Deccan.
6) Hot, humid climate with 75-150 cm of rainfall and deep, rich soil. Grown widely in Uttar Pradesh and Maharashtra.
7) Warm, humid climate with well-drained slopes and shade. Grown mainly in Karnataka, Kerala and Tamil Nadu.
8) Moderate rainfall and warm weather with well-drained alluvial soil. Grown in Karnataka, Madhya Pradesh and Bihar.
9) Low rainfall and high temperature, on sandy or shallow soil where other cereals fail. Grown in Rajasthan, Maharashtra and Karnataka.
10) Hot, wet climate with over 200 cm of rainfall and high humidity. Grown mainly in Kerala and parts of the north-east.

Exercise 3 of 3 · 8 questions

Answer in two or three sentences.

Write the answer · Practice

Here’s one done for you

Steel plants sit near coalfields because coal and iron ore are heavy and bulky, and transporting them costs far more than transporting the finished steel. Notice that the answer gives the reason before the examples. A list of four steel towns is worth very little on its own; the reason explains all four and would explain a fifth the child had never heard of.

1)Why are iron and steel plants usually located near coalfields and iron ore deposits?
2)What is the difference between an agro-based and a mineral-based industry? Give one example of each.
3)Why has the information technology industry grown in cities like Bengaluru rather than near any raw material?
4)Name three factors that decide where a factory is set up.
5)Why do sugar mills locate close to sugarcane fields?
6)Why do industries cluster together in one area?
7)What is a public sector industry, and why does a country need one?
8)Why can an industry be a source of pollution as well as of jobs?

Answers

1) Because both coal and iron ore are heavy, bulky raw materials and moving them is expensive. Locating the plant near them cuts transport costs sharply, which is why Jamshedpur, Bhilai, Rourkela and Bokaro sit where they do.
2) An agro-based industry uses products of agriculture as its raw material - cotton textiles or sugar, for example. A mineral-based industry uses minerals, such as iron and steel or cement.
3) Because its raw material is knowledge rather than a mineral. What it needs is a large supply of trained people, good communications and a favourable climate for investment, and Bengaluru offered all three.
4) Availability of raw material, labour and capital, along with power, transport and a market. Most industrial locations are a compromise between several of these rather than a result of one.
5) Because sugarcane loses its sugar content quickly once it is cut. The crop has to be crushed within a day or two, so the mill must be near the fields.
6) Because they share the same infrastructure - power, transport, banks, skilled workers and suppliers. Being close together lowers costs for all of them.
7) One owned and run by the government rather than by private owners. It matters because some industries are essential but not very profitable, and because a country may not want defence or basic steel left entirely to private hands.
8) Because the same plant that employs thousands also produces waste - smoke, effluent, noise. The jobs go to some people and the pollution often falls on others living nearby, which is why regulation matters.

While your child works

Ask 'why there?' after every crop and every industry. Location questions are what this book is actually about.
For resources, the interesting answers have conditions attached - forests are renewable only if replanting keeps pace with felling.
Map work carries reliable marks and is lost to carelessness. Label every mark and use the key.

Open the Geography worksheet on its own page

practice · medium · 25 min

The Constitution and the judiciary

Class 8 Social Science · Civics · 25 questions with answers

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Civics questions ask for situations and children answer with definitions. A Fundamental Right stated correctly is a mark; the same right with a case where it would actually matter is the answer. Every question here asks for both, because that is what the paper does and almost nobody is told so.

States a Fundamental Right and gives a situation where it applies
Explains why the Constitution has particular features
Traces how a bill becomes a law
Distinguishes a criminal case from a civil one

Exercise 1 of 3 · 9 questions

Name the right, then give a situation where it would matter.

Write the answer · Warm-up

Here’s one done for you

A shop refusing service on grounds of caste is a violation of the Right to Equality. This exercise runs the question backwards on purpose - from the situation to the right - because that is the harder direction and it is the one the paper asks. A child who can only go from the name to the definition has learned a list; a child who can start from a situation has understood what the rights are for.

1)A shop refuses to serve someone because of their caste.
2)A newspaper is stopped from publishing a report critical of a state government.
3)A child of eleven is employed in a factory.
4)A family is prevented from practising their religion.
5)A person is detained without being told why.
6)A worker is forced to work without pay to repay a debt
7)A citizen wishes to move to another state to look for work
8)A person is tried twice for the same offence
9)A community wants to run its own school in its own language

Answers

1) The Right to Equality, which forbids discrimination on grounds of religion, race, caste, sex or place of birth.
2) The Right to Freedom, which includes freedom of speech and expression.
3) The Right against Exploitation, which prohibits the employment of children in hazardous work and forbids forced labour.
4) The Right to Freedom of Religion, which allows every person to profess, practise and propagate the religion of their choice.
5) The Right to Constitutional Remedies, which allows a person to approach the courts directly when a Fundamental Right is violated.
6) The right against exploitation. Bonded labour is prohibited, and it would apply to anyone forced to work to clear a debt.
7) The right to freedom - specifically the freedom to move freely and reside anywhere in India.
8) The right to freedom, which protects a person from being punished twice for the same offence.
9) Cultural and educational rights, which let minorities conserve their language and run their own educational institutions.

Exercise 2 of 3 · 8 questions

Explain why the Constitution has this feature. Two or three sentences.

Write the answer · Guided

Here’s one done for you

Federalism exists because India is too large and too diverse for one government to reflect every region's needs. Notice the shape - the problem first, then the feature as an answer to it. A definition of federalism is worth a mark. The problem it solves is what shows the child understands why anyone bothered to write it into a constitution.

1)Federalism
2)Separation of powers
3)Secularism
4)An independent judiciary
5)Fundamental Rights
6)Universal adult franchise
7)A written Constitution
8)The provision for amendment

Answers

1) Because India is very large and very diverse, and a single central government could not reflect the needs of every region. Power is therefore divided between the Union and the states, each with its own areas of responsibility.
2) Because concentrating all power in one place invites its misuse. The legislature makes laws, the executive implements them and the judiciary interprets them, and each acts as a check on the others.
3) Because India has people of many faiths, and a state that favoured one would place the rest at a disadvantage. The state therefore keeps a distance from all religions and does not adopt any as official.
4) Because the courts must be able to rule against the government itself when a law or an action violates the Constitution. Judges are therefore not appointed or removed at the government's convenience.
5) Because a majority government could otherwise pass laws that take away basic freedoms. Writing rights into the Constitution puts them beyond the reach of an ordinary law.
6) Because a democracy that gave the vote only to some would be run for those people alone. Giving every adult the vote makes the government answerable to the whole population.
7) Because in a country this large and varied, the powers of each institution have to be set down and knowable. An unwritten arrangement would leave too much to whoever held power at the time.
8) Because a Constitution written in 1950 cannot foresee everything. Allowing amendment lets it change with the country, while the difficulty of amending it stops changes being made lightly.

Exercise 3 of 3 · 8 questions

Answer in two or three sentences.

Write the answer · Practice

Here’s one done for you

The right to constitutional remedies matters most because it makes every other right enforceable. Without it, the rest are statements rather than protections. That is a Civics answer at its best - it does not describe the right, it explains what the Constitution would be missing without it, and that is the level Class 10 will expect.

1)How does a bill become a law?
2)What is the difference between a criminal case and a civil case? Give one example of each.
3)What does it mean to say that everyone is equal before the law?
4)Why is the right to constitutional remedies called the most important right?
5)What is an FIR, and why does it matter?
6)What is meant by the presumption of innocence?
7)Why is there a right to appeal to a higher court?
8)What is public interest litigation?

Answers

1) A bill is introduced in Parliament, discussed and debated, and voted on in both Houses. If both pass it, it goes to the President, and it becomes law once the President gives assent.
2) A criminal case involves an act defined as an offence against society, such as theft or assault, and is prosecuted by the state. A civil case involves a dispute between parties over rights or property, such as a disagreement over the ownership of land.
3) It means the law applies in the same way to every person regardless of their wealth, position or background, and that nobody is above it - including those who make and enforce it.
4) Because it is the right that makes the others enforceable. Without a way to approach the courts when a right is violated, the remaining rights would exist on paper and nowhere else - which is why Dr Ambedkar described it as the heart and soul of the Constitution.
5) A First Information Report is the written record the police make when a cognisable offence is reported. It matters because without it there is no official record and no investigation can properly begin.
6) That a person accused of a crime is treated as innocent until the prosecution proves guilt. The burden of proof is on the state, not on the accused to prove innocence.
7) Because judges can be mistaken and evidence can be misread. An appeal lets a higher court examine the decision, which is a check on a single court's error.
8) A case filed on behalf of people who cannot approach the court themselves, on a matter of public concern. It matters because it lets the courts hear issues affecting people without the money or knowledge to sue.

While your child works

Every general statement needs a situation. Ask 'when would this actually matter to someone?' after each answer.
The features questions want the problem before the feature. Definitions alone are the cheaper half.
Civics answers are marked on reasoning, so an answer argued differently from the key can be entirely correct.

Open the Civics worksheet on its own page

Why are these written deeper than Class 8 needs?

Because most of this year comes back in Class 10 almost unchanged.

Class 10 History is modern India - colonialism, nationalism, the freedom movement. Class 10 Civics assumes the Constitution, federalism and the judiciary that Class 8 introduces. That overlap is unusual for a middle-school year, and it changes the arithmetic: learning this properly now is doing two years' work at once.

The full argument is on our Class 8 Social Science tuition page, and the destination is Class 10 Social Science.

How should we use these at home?

Twenty-five to thirty minutes each, once or twice a week. Every exercise opens with one question worked through in full, because the shape of the answer is what is being practised.

History: ask 'whose interest did this serve?' after every policy. It turns a list of acts into something reconstructable.
Geography: ask 'why there?' after every crop and every industry.
Civics: ask 'when would this matter to someone?' after every general statement.
Let your child mark their own work. Every answer is on the page for exactly that reason.

Where do Class 8 children usually stall?

The same place in all three books - naming without explaining - though it looks different in each.

History: the policy without the motive. 'The Doctrine of Lapse' is a mark; 'annexation without a war' is the answer.
Geography: the crop without the conditions, or the industry without the reason for its location.
Civics: the definition where the question wanted a situation.

And one structural problem that is not about answers at all: three strands, often three teachers, one combined mark. An average can hide a neglected strand for a whole term, which is why it is worth looking at all three notebooks once rather than the report card twice. Class 7 Social Science worksheets cover the year before.

Questions parents ask

Class 8 Social Science worksheets - your questions

Are these Class 8 Social Science worksheets free?

Yes. Every question and every answer is on this page, with no sign-up, no email wall and no account. The printable version puts the answers on a separate final sheet.

Why are these deeper than the Class 8 paper requires?

Because most of Class 8 Social Science returns in Class 10 - modern Indian history and the Constitution both. The extra depth costs almost nothing now and saves a term in a board year.

What was the immediate cause of the 1857 revolt?

The greased cartridges of the new Enfield rifle. It was the spark rather than the cause - annexation, heavy revenue and perceived interference in custom were the fuel, and the paper asks for both separately.

Why does my child lose marks in Civics?

Usually because the answer is a definition where the question wanted a situation. One concrete case per idea - when would this actually matter to someone? - answers almost any phrasing.

How do we keep all three strands on track?

Look at all three notebooks once a term rather than the report card twice a year. The strands are usually taught by different teachers and reported as one mark, so an average can hide a weak one.

Are these matched to NCERT?

They are written to the reasoning Class 8 Social Science expects rather than to one book's chapter order, so they work whichever texts your school uses.

How long should a Class 8 child spend on one sheet?

Twenty-five to thirty minutes. If it runs much longer, work through the worked examples together first - the difficulty is usually the answer shape rather than the content.

Can I print these worksheets?

Yes. They print cleanly on A4 with the answers on a separate final page, and nothing needs to be downloaded or signed up for.

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Class 8 Social Science worksheets, free, with every answer on the page

The worksheets themselves

Company rule and the revolt of 1857

Resources, agriculture and industries

The Constitution and the judiciary

Class 8 Social Science - the guide

Why are these written deeper than Class 8 needs?

How should we use these at home?

Where do Class 8 children usually stall?

Class 8 Social Science worksheets - your questions

Worksheets are free. So is the first class.

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