Students’ Speak: How CLAT 2020 Exam Pattern impact aspirants?

By: Teresa Dhar

The exam pattern for the Common Law Admission Test (CLAT 2020) has been altered drastically. The exam from this year onwards will be held offline in pen-paper mode.

CLAT Examination Structure

Instead of 200 questions, the exam structure has been reduced to 150 questions that will have to be answered in 120 minutes (2 hours). The marking pattern remains as:

• For every correct answer, candidates are awarded one mark.
• However, for every wrong attempt, 0.25 marks are deducted from their total score. 
• No marks will be awarded or deducted for questions not attempted.

According to the press release circulated by the consortium on December 14, 2019, CLAT question paper will carry 150 questions based on the English language, Current Affairs, including general knowledge, Legal Reasoning, Logical Reasoning and Quantitative Techniques. The National University of Study and Research in Law (NUSRL), Ranchi will conduct CLAT 2020 in offline mode on May 10, 2020. 

The sectional division and weightage are:

Impact of Revised CLAT Exam Pattern

Without going into the merit of whether this pattern is a better method of testing students effectively, something needs to be understood. Since most of the questions are comprehension-based, the questions for each passage will be the same. For instance, “What is the meaning of the underlined word?”; “What could be the correct word instead of the one given?”, “What could be inferred from the passage?”. Or maybe, apply the principles laid down in the principle for the following legal situations for Legal Reasoning. Or, a bunch of sets or charts from which we have to make derivations and some Class 10th  mathematical questions for Quantitative Techniques.

The point of these exercises is to test CLAT aspirants’ comprehensive skills, critical reasoning, and logical deduction making skills. True, students have to go through the same preparation that they went for the past CLAT exams - reading newspapers, honing their grammar and vocabulary, being able to comprehend complex passages within few minutes, etc. However, with this pattern, the scope of mugging a lot of information has been reduced.

With this, students can focus on the subjects with greater clarity and all they require for a subject such as GK, Legal Reasoning and English is to know important current international and national events, read reviews of recently launched books or the existing significant fiction and read the basic Constitutional provisions such as Article 14 and 21 or legal events such as Abrogation of Article 370. Where the scope of rot learning has been reduced, the chances of students using their mental faculties to critically and logically reason increases. This is more beneficial as it actually prepares the student to implement the same in their law schools and universities where they will be eventually taught the law subjects. Hence, students who are able to reason well and ably will benefit more. Those who can’t reason as well might face a problem. However, that doesn’t mean that they can’t achieve the same. To crack this exam, the key is only one thing, read and read a lot, especially good newspapers, novels and be updated about the current affairs. Then importantly, take as many mock tests and go through as many sample papers possible. With that, you are surely good to go.

About the Author:

Teresa Dhar is a third-year student pursuing BA LLB from Chanakya National Law University.