Common Law Admission Test (CLAT) for admission to 21 National Law universities, 43 other education institutes and two public sector institutes will take place on May 12, 2019. Amandeep Rajgotra,National Product Head Law, Pratham Education, New Delhi shares some tips for candidates appearing in this centralized entrance exam:
Over the years, pursuing the course to become a lawyer – LAW has garnered huge popularity. The reason which makes Law, a favorite choice for students is primarily that the course is neutral to all the streams. Secondly, a degree in Law has a huge scope in terms of career and respect in society. In this era of information flowing across through all possible mediums, it’s not hard to face the realities behind career options.
Law as a career, is more than black and white, but is now like a rainbow blooming with all possible colors on a canvas. In difficult situations like recession, it’s very hard for the youngsters to find jobs but law keep restricted just as doctors. Companies, corporate also hires corporate lawyer to deal with all the legal cases. However, entrance exam like CLAT also demand a lot of focus for preparation along with determination and perseverance to crack the beast like entrance exams of the reputed colleges.
An aspiring law student should focus on some key strategies that they should make use of to maximize their perfect score in each section of the CLAT, 2019. The most important ones are as follows :-
1. Keep track on changing trends of the exam – It is always advisable to know your territory before you get into war. The CLAT is very unpredictable. It is advisable to see the trends over the years and cut offs which will help you focus on the sections which are important. To score high in an exam like CLAT one should be thorough with the basic concepts of topics asked in the paper. It becomes all the more important to brush up the fundamentals.
2. Management of the time is an art to crave – One of the most important things you need to keep in mind when it comes to time management is that, unless you are exceptionally intelligent and gifted, you will most probably not be able to attempt all the questions on the test. This is perfectly fine. In fact, sometimes the desire to attempt all the questions can land students in trouble because your accuracy level can fall down drastically under timing pressure. Since the test has negative marking, this can adversely affect your overall score. A student need to need to attempt 200 questions in 120 minutes, so it very important to have a robust time management strategy in place.
3. Don’t Fall In Love with the Questions: What you should do is pick and choose which questions to attempt and which to skip, so that you are in control of the test at all times. It’s absolutely fine if you are not able to solve one question. Move ahead and try to solve other questions in the paper. A smart test taker will leave out all the questions that look time-consuming and lengthy initially and only come back to them at the end if there is time left in the test. This strategy works particularly well on the CLAT because there are no section specific cut offs that need to be cleared.
4. Practice makes you perfect: As an aspirant for CLAT entrance exam, your target should be to attempt around 150-160 questions in total with 90% accuracy. If you can attempt more, by all means, do so, but this should be the target for an average student. The only way to achieve accuracy is to practice. When you practice, one thing you must try to do is to identify the question types within each section that you are good at, and those that you are not so good at. This will help you save time in the actual exam. It is very important to constantly work on improving vocabulary and learning current affairs. This will help you enhance your score.
Tips to get a perfect score in each section of CLAT, 2019-
1. Legal Aptitude: The most important section to attempt in CLAT 2019 is the legal aptitude section. Candidates should try to give their best while dealing with questions of the legal aptitude section consisting of two parts-Legal Reasoning and Legal Knowledge. For Legal Reasoning questions, candidates need to read the question cautiously and understand before solving the part. For Legal Knowledge section, the candidates need to memorize a set of Legal Maxims for accurate usage of the legal terminologies. The focus should be on current Legal news and some recent important cases before Supreme Court.
2. General Awareness: The General Knowledge section in the CLAT exam includes 50 questions from Static GK and Current Affairs. This section is important as it helps save time and one can utilize this to allocate more time to more significant sections of the examination. This section also helps to increase the overall score as the questions asked are factual and direct. If you prepare for the CLAT GK section properly, it will help in covering many other aspects of the CLAT Legal Aptitude section that has questions on Legal GK also.
3. Numerical Ability- This section has 20 questions. The major focus is on class 10th Mathematics. Many students are scared of mathematics, but if a student is regularly practicing the basic concepts it is sure that he/she can solve most of the questions from this section. To prepare for Mathematics section, candidates need to practise more and more number of quantitative aptitude questions. The questions will cover a varied number of topics including Number systems, Percentages, Time Speed and Distance, Time and work, Algebra, Co-ordinate Geometry, Trigonometry, Mensuration, and Probability. You should spend around 15 minutes on this section.
4. Logical Reasoning: It is again a very unpredictable section. The unfamiliarity of students with this section makes it difficult. It has 40 questions, which are based on Coding Decoding, Family Tree, Arrangements, Syllogisms and Critical Reasoning. Critical Reasoning is the most important part of this section. Ideal number of attempts in this section is 32-35 with 90% accuracy.
5. Verbal Ability – This section mostly has questions which test your reading skills. A lot of students tend to leave Reading Comprehension because they lack aptitude for reading. The reasons to leave reading comprehension are that it consumes time and also, the accuracy level is low. One should practise a lot as it is highly recommended that you should attempt Reading Comprehension questions because just by reading one passage you will be able to answer 5 to 10 questions. If you work a little on improving reading skills, it will also help you in attempting questions based on Sentence Completion and Sentence Arrangement.
6. Vocabulary: Another important aspect of the Verbal section is Vocabulary. The paper has a lot of questions on synonym-antonym. These questions become difficult if you do not have command over it. One should focus on increasing the word base.
7. Grammar: The questions are on English usage. Spot the errors and phrase substitution are the major type of questions asked. Out of the total 120 minutes that you get, you should spend around 20-25 minutes on this section in which you should try to attempt about 25-30 questions.
