Students’ Speak: What’s in store for aspirants in CLAT 2020 exam?

By: Diwakar Goel

Unlike in previous years, the CLAT exam pattern has completely changed. The number of questions has been decreased while no change in the time is made. The candidate should focus on and develop their capacity to read and comprehend.

The Consortium of National Law Universities announced certain modifications in the pattern of questions for each of the five specified areas of the Common Law Admission Test (CLAT 2020).

CLAT 2020 Evaluation Criteria

The UG-CLAT 2020 would focus on evaluating the comprehension and reasoning skills and abilities of candidates. Overall, it is designed to be a test of aptitude and skills that are necessary for a legal education rather than prior knowledge, though prior knowledge occasionally may be useful to respond to questions in the Current Affairs section.

The UG-CLAT 2020 shall be a two-hour test, with 150 multiple-choice questions carrying one mark each. There shall be negative marking of 0.25 marks for every wrong answer. These questions would be divided across the following five subjects:

• English Language: This comprises mainly of comprehension. In this section passages of about 450 words derived from contemporary or historically significant fiction and non-fiction writings will be given. These passages will be of like 12th standard difficulty. Along with these, vocabulary will also be tested.
• Current Affairs, including General Knowledge: This is also comprehension based. Passages derived from news, journalistic sources and other non-fiction writing will be given. The questions will be designed in such a way as to test legal information and legal knowledge. The questions will also comprise contemporary events of India and the world; arts and culture; international affairs; and historical events of continuing significance.
• Legal Reasoning: Passages relating to legal matters, public policy questions or contemporary legal and moral issues will come. Following the passage, the questions will be of assertion and reasoning or application type.
• Logical Reasoning: The section is comprehension based and will require the aspirant to recognise an argument set out in the passage, its premises and conclusions; analyse patterns of reasoning, and make conclusions; infer what follows from the passage and apply these inferences to new situations; draw relationships and analogies, identify contradictions and equivalence; and assess the effectiveness of arguments
• Quantitative Techniques: This section will include short sets of facts or propositions, graphs, textual, pictorial or diagrammatic representations of numerical information, followed by a series of questions. You will be required to derive information from such passages, graphs, and other representation. The difficulty will be based on Class 10.

Things CLAT Aspirants Must Do

Unlike in previous years, the CLAT exam pattern has completely changed. The number of questions has been decreased while no change in the time is made. The candidate should focus on and develop their capacity to read and comprehend. No special preparation is needed except having knowledge of news and current affairs and a general idea of principles of law.

The impact of such pattern change will be directly seen on the cutoffs. As the entire question paper is comprehension based, so anyone would be able to solve the paper easily. Thus little differences in marks will lead to great fall in the All India Rankings. So the aspirant must keep strict regard to the negative marking. You should abstain from taking chances an answering wrong. This will do more damage. Practice on your reading and comprehension speed, practice vocabulary and read a newspaper daily. Attempt mock tests and practice pie-charts and graphs which come in newspapers, or in books such as R S Aggrawal’s quantitative aptitude. Reading newspaper daily will also help develop vocabulary.

About the Author:

Diwakar Goel is a fifth-year BA LLB student at University School of Law and Legal Studies of Guru Gobind Singh Indraprastha University. He writes and guides students planning to pursue law.