Tips to Prepare for English Section of CLAT 2026 Exam: Books, Important Topics

By LegalEdge Tutorials

Candidates appearing for CLAT 2026 exam should have a section-wise strategy to score well in the exam. Read this article to prepare for English/Reading Comprehension section of CLAT question paper.

I hope you have started improving your language in order to clear the CLAT exam 2026 and, I guess you have become clueless by now. I bet you do not wish to be a cat that thinks of itself as a lion. Remember this journey begins with self-analysis. You will be cheating yourself if you are not aware of your strengths and weaknesses for the upcoming examination, that is CLAT Exam.

Also Read: Idioms and Proverbs for CLAT 2026 With Meaning

Hence, it is a good idea that you start taking some mock tests to get an insight into your CLAT preparation level. Once you figure out that, you need to improve a bit in every topic, chalk out a practice plan.

First things first. Let us have a roadmap to becoming a reader, which is the means and ends of this journey. Have a look at this list:

• Illusions by Richard Bach
• Outliers by Malcolm Gladwell
• The Art Of War by Sun Tzu
• Sherlock Holmes: The Ultimate Collection by Arthur Conan Doyle
• Tuesdays with Morrie by Mitch Albom
• Eat Pray Love by Elizabeth Gilbert. 
• The  Jonathan Livingston Seagull by Richard Bach
• Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy by Douglas Adams
• Fantastic Mr. Fox by Roald Dahl
• Malgudi days by R.K. Narayan
• Freakonomics  by Stephen J. Dubner and Steven Levitt
• Sita: An Illustrated Retelling of the Ramayana by Devdutt Pattanaik
• Alice's Adventures in Wonderland by Lewis Carroll. 
• Kafka on the Shore by Haruki Murakami
• An era of Darkness by Shashi Tharoor
• Animal Farm by George Orwell
• Pride and Prejudice by Jane Austen
• And then there were none by Agatha Christie
• Siddhartha By Herman Hesse
• Who moved my cheese by Spencer Johnson
• The Hunger Games Series by Suzanne collins
• The Harry Potter Series by J.K. Rowling
• Interpreter of Maladies by Jhumpa Lahiri
• How to win friends and influence people by Dale Carnegie
• The palace of illusions by Chitra Banerjee Divakaruni

How many books from this list have you read? I expect that at least one would be the answer. In case you are just beginning, pick books from this list and dig into them. Read all or most of these books and get some reading confidence behind yourself.

You can also pick-up articles (selectively) from The Hindu, The Indian Express or The Times of India daily. The Sunday editions are always the best as they offer a quick recap of the week as well as an interesting analysis. Therefore, you can give yourself extra time to read these.

Once you familiarize yourself with the basics of the language, you can begin your adventure with Reading Comprehension.

Also Read: 

Tricks to score well in the Reading Comprehension section of CLAT:

You may skip a particular Reading Comprehension question if you are unable to manage time. However, never skip the comprehension as a whole. Some questions will be easy to answer.

Another common mistake is to think about the answer and rarely about the question. Comprehend the question before attempting to answer it. The answers will not be in a format of copy-paste from the passage. Read carefully and understand. You should develop a habit of taking notes about pertinent points that you come across while reading passages. It can save some time during the test.

As far as your word power is concerned, it will only improve if you learn to make an association with a word or else, it may feel like an endlessly futile exercise.

Let me tell you the best part about English Preparation; it does not feel like preparation at all. It is fun especially if you add supplementary material to your basic study routine.

Your basic study routine for English should include reading (Reading Passages, Para jumbles), vocabulary enhancement and getting your grammar right (one concept at a time) and of course, solving the study material.

For supplementary material, try watching the news or find interviews and journalistic video pieces online that cover different topics. You can always start with topics you are interested in but make sure you take in diverse content.

Remember, at all times that your English Language goal is within your reach. However, build up realistic expectations about your mock score. Otherwise, you are heading for uncalled-for disappointment.

Wouldn’t we all like it if there were a magical potion that would improve our language skills in a jiffy? Well, what if I told you that there are techniques that can miraculously transform anybody (just about anybody) into an English enthusiast?

Here you go then!  

1. Learn to enjoy the process and change it from a boring school subject into a pleasant activity that you don’t mind doing every day For e.g. if you don’t like listening to boring textbook material, follow channels on YouTube or in podcasts. If you are a more introverted person and you cannot imagine speaking to people right away, you can apply the method of self-talk. You can talk to yourself in the comfort of your room. Begin with something you enjoy reading and slowly progress to the topics that bother you.

2. Find effective methods to memorize words. Try visualizing concepts you will remember them longer. Make associations. Use mnemonics. Go creative. The number of senses you involve in the learning experience (in reality or in imagination), the easier it is to remember things. In the case of words, you can use the sense of sight to conjure up an image in your imagination to associate with a word, sense of feeling, taste and smell if describing something tangible. Sense of touch and sound by enunciating the words clearly and feeling every movement in your mouth and coordinating it with the sound made. Writing down what you have learned is an excellent way to engage a sense of touch and sight simultaneously.

3. Create a system in your learning. Can you wake up 15 minutes earlier than you normally do? That would be the perfect time to revise some vocabulary. Can you listen to an audiobook on your way to school/coaching? Well, that would be great to get some listening experience. Make realizable goals like “I will practise speaking every Sunday for 20 Minutes.” On the other hand, “I will solve an RC before having lunch.” If you create a system in your learning, it will become a part of your everyday life.

Finally, have patience. It is not possible to learn a language within two months, but it is definitely possible to make a visible improvement in two months. Keep taking one baby step at a time and keep improving to get successful.

4. Generally, if you are good at English, you are expected to perform at the exam as well. CLAT should not pose too many problems to a person well-versed in English. However, there are a few tricky areas where a special orientation is required. For example, you often write correct sentences. Yet when you face a sentence that may have a minor error, you have to struggle to point it out. Again, you may have a good vocabulary. However, this does not imply that you are necessarily tuned to the questions asked in exams. The world of exams is a world of its own. On the other hand, consider the sentence arrangement. Writing a paragraph of your own is perhaps an easier thing to do. However, when you get a sentence from someone else’s paragraph in a jumbled manner, a lot of exercise needs to be done to arrive at the precise arrangement.

5. Bearing these in mind, it is always a good idea to get hold of previous years’ CLAT papers & AILET question papers. Solve them along with mock test papers. One of the most underrated and least attended to aspects of learning scholastic material is revision. Revision is more important than memorization because it reminds your brain what it needs to store for the long term thereby sealing it in there. Your brain will store only what it thinks is important and you get to decide what is important by doing that thing repeatedly and at regular intervals.

If you have done your homework properly, you can comfortably expect a good score in the exam. Remember each day wasted is taking you one step away from the exam that could change your life. So, stop. Thinking, get going!

Above all, TRY, FAIL, RETRY. If you play too safe because you do not want to fail, then you fail, by default. This preparation period is a blessing in disguise for you. It can work wonders and upgrade you intellectually if you allow it to.

Hoping that you will do EXACTLY that.

Section-Wise CLAT 2026 Preparation Tips

Click on the links below to know how to prepare for different sections of the CLAT 2026 exam below:

Anuja Saxena is the HOD English at LegalEdge Tutorials and has years of experience helping CLAT aspirants in acing the subject. Currently, LegalEdge Tutorials has seven centres across India including Jaipur, Lucknow, Kanpur, Bhopal, Raipur, Prayagraj and Indore.

Read More: 

• Important topics for CLAT 2026
• List of NLUs in India