CLAT 2023: Regular revisions, mock tests, quality over quantity — tips and tricks to ace your preparations

CLAT is an aptitude-based exam which measures a student’s interest in law, rather than their legal knowledge. Law degree has gained huge popularity in recent years and this is mostly due to the fact that the course is open to various academic fields, including engineering and business. Furthermore, it offers tremendous potential for job advancement and social recognition.

With this aim in mind, the CLAT consortium developed a new pattern starting in 2020, in which they also intend to thoroughly assess the student’s reading and comprehension abilities, as they believe that these abilities are crucial for law degree aspirants. As a result, the strategy that worked well for the previous CLAT pattern could not work as well for CLAT 2022.

Here are the main pointers that aspirants need to take care of during their last leg of the preparations

Section wise strategy

CLAT has 5 sections —English language, current affairs, including general knowledge, legal reasoning, logical reasoning and quantitative techniques. All these sections require a distinct approach. However, reading and comprehension skills remain same in all the five sections.

Topics to focus on for UG exam of CLAT

Quantitative techniques: Numerical information, ratio, basic algebra, menstruation, statistical estimation, graphs, and proportion

Logical reasoning: Argument- premise and conclusion, inference, relationships and analogies, contradictions and equivalence

English: Passages, reading, comprehension, inference, and conclusion, summary, vocabulary

Legal Reasoning: Rules and passages of law, application of the rules and passages

Current Affairs: Arts and culture, international affairs, contemporary events of national and international significance, historical events of significance.

Topics to focus on for PG exam of CLAT

Intellectual Property Rights: Nature, Definition and Scope of IPR, Trademarks Act 1999, Copyright Act 1957, Patents Act 1970, , IPR in International Perspective

Torts: Nuisance, defamation, classification of torts, trespass, liability for misstatements

Criminal Law: Elements of crime, exceptions, attempt to commit offences, group liability, abetment, criminal conspiracy, offences against body

International Law: Overview of international law, international law of sea, origin and development of international law and bodies, air, land

Tips to score well in CLAT 2022

Any law student seeking to become a lawyer should keep these tips in mind

1. Effective time management – Time utilisation during preparations is a must as one needs to work on the weaker areas and overcome the shortfalls. Further, attempting several mock tests also ensures how much time to give to each question based on the difficulty levels, which will help in the real exam.

2. Thorough revision – Aspirants must have already completed their syllabus for CLAT by now, but to keep things on tips, it is equally important to revise regularly. Students should adhere to a strict revision time table, while attempting mock tests side by side.

3. Aim for quality, not quantity– Practice is must to ace through any competitive exam. Aspirants should practice as many test series as possible which will help in identifying the stronger areas and accuracy of the results. Do not always go for 100 per cent attempt; even 90 per cent accuracy can help score good.

4. Mock tests and analysis – Mock test series provided by several experts consist of diligently made mock exams for CLAT, that helps provide a real time experience. It is very important to work constantly on improving vocabulary and learning current affairs. This will help you enhance your score. However, candidates should remember that they can always modify this strategy based on their performance in the mock tests. The ideal way to practice questions and assess your preparation is through the help of mock tests. Prepare for all these sections and attempt as many mocks as possible. One should analyse their mocks post their attempt.

(The writer is the director of Pratham Test Prep)