Frustrated with daily mugging up static general knowledge like history, geography and political science! You bravely prepare for Common Law Admission Test but fear from memorizing static GK, legal knowledge and basic English vocabulary. Just go and dump your all fears as CLAT entrance exam pattern has been revamped since 2011.It will focus more on testing the legal aptitude and not knowledge of aspiring legal eagles.

Though the number of questions will remain unchanged, there will be minor changes in three of the five sections of the 200-question paper. In the GK and current affairs section, questions on static GK will be out. Only questions pertaining to events of the past one year will be asked. Now CLAT exam will asses students knowledge on updated events and influence of the events on their lives. Questions will be asked on issues that are relevant to the present and the future. In the legal aptitude/legal awareness section, questions on legal knowledge will be kept out after all students are coming to a law school to study these principles only. The series of changes are being carried out to make the entrance exam more scientific, and to gradually decrease the number of knowledge-based questions in the paper. The changes in the general knowledge section will force students to diligently follow current affairs all the year round rather than memorizing questions from off-the-shelf general knowledge books and the new legal reasoning will test them purely on their aptitude and logical thinking when it comes to the law. The committee that conducts the admission test for national law schools has made changes to improve the content and the reach of the next edition. The test will not expect candidates to know legal terms, sections of law or legal principles. Candidates will not be tested on any prior knowledge of law or legal concepts. If a technical/legal term is used in the question, that term will be explained in the question itself.

Subject areas of CLAT exam for undergraduate programmes are same but only strategy of questions have been modified. Each section is explained point wise in subsequent paragraphs.

English including comprehension

The English section will test the candidate’s proficiency in English based comprehension passages and grammar. In the comprehension section, candidates will be questioned on their understanding of the passage and its central theme, meanings of words used therein etc. The grammar section requires correction of incorrect grammatical sentences, filling in of blanks in sentences with appropriate words, etc.

Tips for English section

The only even remotely advanced area in the entire test is the vocabulary section. Most of you have done the rules of grammar in school and have devised your innovative rules and internalized them as well. You have reached that stage where you can make out if something’s wrong and with a sentence and what it is by saying it in your head. Just follow your hunch and back your instincts.

General Knowledge/Current Affairs

This section will only test students on their knowledge of current affairs based on past one year.

Tips for GK

This is the joker in the pack because the format may be fixed but there’s no way to predict the type of content. The GK section’s a lot easier now with the short notes, so make the most of that.  Also you’ll realize that a lot of what you have read during those history & civics classes in school has actually stuck to the dark walls of your membrane. A lot of questions will seem familiar and even if you don’t remember the answer, one look at the options will make a lot of things clear to you. You’ll realize that your intuition will bail you out more often than not and a lot questions will just click on the spot.

Mathematics

This section will test candidates only on “elementary” mathematics taught till class 10.

Tips for Maths

This will either be a piece of cake or your biggest nightmare. Accordingly its role in your roster should vary. There’s really no study tip or special preparation that anybody can give you for math. The math involved is very basic and uses only primary concepts. Use the options; they are there for a reason.

Logical Reasoning

The purpose of the logical reasoning section is to test the student’s ability to identify patterns, logical links and rectify illogical arguments. It will include a wide variety of logical reasoning questions such as syllogisms, logical sequences, analogies, etc. However, visual reasoning will not be tested, as this tends to disadvantage those that are visually impaired.

Tips for Logic

Logic is a lot like math, but it’s easier to crack in a short time span. There are certain categories of questions in logic. Each of these categories has a certain way of going about it. You should have enough opportunity to acquaint yourself with this section of the paper, besides all you require to crack this section is “Good Reasoning Ability” which cannot be taught, and comes naturally to you. The best thing about this section is that you can crack each question in this section without having done any similar problems prior to this test.

Legal Aptitude/Legal Awareness

Legal Aptitude/Legal Awareness section will test students only on “legal aptitude”. Questions will be framed with the help of legal propositions (described in the paper), and a set of facts to which said proposition has to be applied. Some propositions may not be “true” in the real sense (e.g. the legal proposition might be that any person who speaks in a movie hall and disturbs others that are watching the movie will be banned from entering any movie theater across India for one year). Candidates will have to assume the “truth” of these propositions and answer the question accordingly.

Tips for Legal Knowledge

This constitutes a vital section of the paper. The questions also cover a vast scope. Pay more attention to the Constitution of India, and the events happening around you.

Important areas for the Constitution:

• Judiciary
• Elections
• Parliament

Current affairs dealing with law:

In the domestic sector:

Concentrate on all the happenings in the field of terrorism and the new laws to tackle it. Closely follow the legal issues associated with the Judges appointment, RTI, Bills, Telangana , Scams, etc.

One good way would be to look at all the commissions and committees set up, and the latest status regarding their functioning.

International sector:

Wars and human rights, and environment- these are the crucial topics.

The measures taken to curb international terrorism are also important. And I see no surprises.

Coaching Institutes

The names and details regarding some of the best coaching institutes for CLAT coaching are given below:

• Abhyaas
• Sriram Law Academy
• Career Launcher
• ParadygmLaw
• CrackCLAT

Abhyaas

Abhyaas offers Abhyaas Law Product (ALP) for students who wish to prepare and confidently crack the CLAT.

The various ALP programs are:

ALP Long Term: This program is for students who wish to prepare over a longer duration, which is usually when they are in their class XII. With over 250 hours of comprehensive classroom training, the long term is a focused and planned effort towards a good CLAT rank.

ALP Crash Course: This is offered to students who take the course immediately after their regular high school (class XII), and is spread over a 120 hours which is delivered over a period of 6 weeks.

ALP Pre-Law: This program is offered to students from class IX, Xth and XIth. This program will help the students understand the bigger canvas of Law and related fields in a better manner. Under this program, students get regular workshops, newsletters and mobile general awareness enhancing packages.

ALP Correspondence: This program is for people who due to various reasons are unable to attend the regular classroom program. The student gets all the study material, practice exercises, online doubt clearing support, mobile general awareness pack and newsletter as a part of this program.

Sriram Law Academy:

Sriram Law Academy came into existence in the year 2002 and they offer seven different courses for enabling the students to prepare for the CLAT examination and these courses are:

• Sriram online Mocks
• Sriram Rapid Course
• Sriram Power
• Sriram Expert
• Sriram Target Plus
• Sriram Target Edge
• Sriram Target

They offer classroom coaching in the city of Chennai and they also offer postal and online coaching for students belonging to other states and cities. For further details, candidates can visit their website at http://www.lawentrancecoaching.com/index.aspx

Career Launcher:

Career Launcher is a popular coaching institute for offering different entrance examination coaching and they have a separate wing for offering coaching to different law examinations called as LST or Law Test Prep. The courses offered by them for law entrance coaching are:

• LST Span
• CLAT Test Series
• LST Beacon
• LST Express
• LST Plus

For further details candidates can visit their website at http://www.lawentrance.com/

ParadygmLaw:

ParadygmLaw is an institute founded by the graduates of IIM, Ahmedabad and NLSIU, Bangalore. As far as CLAT coaching is concerned, they offer intensive training for general knowledge, English-verbal ability and reasoning, mathematics, logical reasoning and aptitude. They offer Mock test packages, classroom courses, correspondence courses, crash courses and combination courses for preparing students to the CLAT examination. For further details candidates can visit their website at http://www.paradygmlaw.com/

CrackCLAT:

CrackCLAT as the name implies are pioneers in the field of law entrance coaching and they have nearly ten years of experience with proven track records. Their coaching for CLAT examination includes four different courses namely Achievers course, target course, correspondence course and test series. Of these courses, Achievers course is a long-term course and target course is short-term course. The former is conducted for one year, while the later is conducted for 40 days. The course fee charged by them for the correspondence course is Rs. 7500 and their test series includes 15 mock tests. For further details candidates can visit their website at http://www.crackclat.com/

Reference Books for CLAT

• CLAT Common Law Admission Test by Mazumdar Rituparna
• CLAT Guide by RPH Editorial Board
• Common Law Admission Test [CLAT] by HemaRaman
• Common Law Admission Test by Lal and Mishra.
• Comprehensive Book of English Grammer by Dr. B. B. Jain
• Grammar by Wrenn and Martin
• Legal Aptitude and Legal Reasoning by Panel of Experts
• Practice Papers for CLAT by Gaurav Mehta
• Study Package for CLAT & LLB Entrance Examinations by AP Bhardwaj

Study Plan

One of the methods would be to have a systematic approach. First and foremost would be to cultivate the habit of reading newspapers. It will not only improve one’s English vocabulary but also improve general knowledge. If you are a constant visitor on sites related to law it will also be very helpful. You can also get all the latest information related to law through these websites.

One should also be able to think logically about how matters and decision are carried out in court. In order to score better marks one should do well in mathematics. Important topics where one should put in more efforts are algebraic formulas, percentage and profit and loss. Daily exercise and working out of previous years question papers will also be of great help. It would automatically increase one’s accuracy and speed. A book consisting of last16 years of question paper was introduces by The National Law School India University. This can also be practiced to have a better result.

Go ahead in your life leaving behind all your complications and without any fear start your preparation to crack CLAT entrance exam having faith in your hardwork. Leave no page unturn in your life that can take you to your goal of life.

BEST OF LUCK!!