CLAT 2020 exam pattern changed, Exam on May 10

In a press meet held at CLAT Consortium‘s Permanent Secretariat in Bangalore, on November 21, 2019, major changes were announced for CLAT 2020 exam pattern as well as the responsibilities of the Consortium members. Read here in detail. 

The upcoming exam of Common Law Admission Test (CLAT) will be held on May 10, 2020 (Sunday) as confirmed by Prof. Faizan Mustafa, President - Consortium of National Law Universities (NLUs), in a press meet on November 21, 2019. The online applications for CLAT 2020 will begin from January 1 next year.

Changes in CLAT 2020 Exam Pattern

Major changes regarding the exam pattern of CLAT for undergraduate courses have been made and going forward, the consortium may start announcing cut off marks for LLM courses as well.

The key points regarding CLAT 2020 exam from the official notification are as under:

Reduction in total number of questions – There will be less number of questions than last year, as only 120-150 questions will be asked in the question paper of upcoming CLAT exam as confirmed by Prof. Mustafa - ‘Asking students to answer 200 questions in 120 minutes is not right as it puts students under a lot of mental stress.’

Legal Aptitude section removed? – CLAT 2020 question paper will have Quantitative Techniques, English, Current Affairs, Deductive Reasoning, and Logical Reasoning sections. Last year, the question paper also had Legal Aptitude section, however, there is no information regarding this section in the press release. Inclusion or exclusion of legal aptitude section in CLAT 2020 will be confirmed only after a detailed notification is released in the last week of December 2019.

More comprehension based questions –  CLAT 2020 will carry more question based on comprehension in all the sections of the question paper for both UG and PG courses. The press release states – ‘Comprehension based questions would be asked from Quantitative Techniques, English, Current Affairs, Deductive Reasoning and Logical Reasoning. The idea is to get better students to National Law Universities who have competence in reading texts and demonstrate skills in inferential reasoning. Similarly, the PG admission test will also have comprehension-based questions.’

Some of the exam features that will remain unchanged are:

Exam mode – CLAT 2020 will be a pen-paper based test only.

Duration of exam – The exam will be of two hours for both UG and PG courses.

Descriptive questions - The question paper of CLAT PG exam will have descriptive questions part same as last year.

Changes in Consortium of CLAT

In the press meet, Prof. Faizan, Vice-Chancellor NLU Hyderabad - Nalsar University of Law also announced changes in CLAT Consortium as under –

• New President - Prof. V. Vijayakumar, Vice-Chancellor, NLIU Bhopal - The National Law Institute University
• New Vice-President - Prof. Paramjit S. Jaswal, Vice-Chancellor, NLU Patiala (RGNUL) - Rajiv Gandhi National University of Law
• CLAT 2020 Convenor - Prof. Balraj Chouhan, Vice-Chancellor, NLU Jabalpur (DNLU) - Dharmashastra National Law University
• Member of the Executive Council for CLAT 2020 - Prof. Srikrishna Deva Rao, Vice-Chancellor, NLU Odisha (NLUO) - National Law University
• CLAT 2020 exam conducting authority - Prof. V. Kesava Rao, Vice-Chancellor, NLU Ranchi (NUSRL) - National University of Study and Research In Law