Sad to say there is no shortcut for Social Studies and History
Elective.
It is impossible to not read the textbook, you have to
understand each chapter first. It is true that you must memorize
the text, but you also have to know what is going on because in
exams the question phrases differently!- There is no point
memorising the whole text if you don't understand the question.
Humanities is hard because you don't know what is coming out for
O Levels, so you may have to study 3-4 chapters at one go.
You may wish to write down in point-form or mind-map to
understand better, because the chunks of paragraph in the textbook
is not easy to remember.
For humanities you HAVE to study early, 1 day before the exam is
too late.
~Aldric