How to Start Your Preparation for CLAT 2021
CLAT 2021 will most probably take place in the usual timeline which is in the month of May. This is being said under the assumption that normalcy will return in the next 6 months or atleast the world will be more stable than it is today under the COVID 19 crisis.
Any other year, the aspirants would get a year’s time between the two examinations but this year due to the delays, there are roughly 6 months left.
For those who have just decided to start, the journey of a year needs to be completed in half the time. That being said, there is only a single examination paper that can be used as a sample format for preparation. This makes things even more difficult as compared to the previous exams.
Let’s take a look at the CLAT pattern for 2020 which will give us an idea about the next year’s paper.
CLAT Exam Pattern for 2020
Format of the paper
- Number of questions: 150
- Duration of paper: 2 hours
- Maximum marks: 150
- Negative marking: 0.25 for every wrong answer
Subject-wise marks/questions breakup
- Legal Reasoning: 35-40
- English Language: 28-32
- Logical Reasoning: 28-32
- Quantitative Techniques: 13-17
- Current Affairs with GK: 35-39
Do not forget that most of you will also have your board exams in a few months so you have to balance the two as well.
Follow these steps to balance your CLAT preparation
- Time Management: Two of the most important exams of your life are coming your way in less than a year. You have a finite number of hours in a day, therefore, you have to manage your time very efficiently and diligently. Allocate hours for Boards and CLAT separately and stick to them.
- Syllabus Distribution: Fret not! The time available to you is still enough to cover the syllabus and the mock tests. It is advisable that you divide the syllabus over a period of 6 months and reserve the rest for revision.
- Practice/Mock/Past Papers: This is the most important part of the preparation and since you have a year less than the previous category, you must work double your efforts. Aim to solve atleast 2-3 papers a week. Every time you solve a paper, it will tell you which modifications you need in your preparation style.
- Join CLAT Coaching: You need to pace your preparation and need constant guidance. There will be days when the pressure of school will not allow you to concentrate on your CLAT prep and on others you will feel low and won’t be able to concentrate. The CLAT coaching will help you on these days, ensuring you invest a fixed time on CLAT prep as well as get to be part of a like-minded peer group to cheer you up on gloomy days.
Once your board exams are done, you can switch your preparation regime. It has to be focused on CLAT alone. The last three months of preparation are the most crucial as they need to be focused more on revision and less on consuming more information.
Here are a few tips to focus your preparation when 3 months are left for CLAT
- No Casual Reading: The time of casual reading is long gone. You cannot spend 4 hours reading a chapter from the module anymore. The laid back attitude will waste this precious preparation time. Invest as little time as you can on casual reading and focus on practising more and more questions,
- Mocks/Practice/Past Papers: Do atleast one of these in a day and if you can then go for two a day. On weekends, surpass your limits by going for three a day.
- Time your Work: Always keep a clock and time your progress. It will help you get accustomed to the tight window of CLAT where you have to read a lot and attempt those that you deem fit.
- Limit time to Subjects: It will not help you now to invest 6 hours on GK. This subject has no end and investing more than 2 hours a day is wasting time which can be used on practice-based subjects.
- Read Newspapers: Investing an hour on a good newspaper daily will not only ensure your current affairs but also brush up your vocabulary, that is one hour and two subjects. Use these hacks to target your subjects and always merge smart work and hard work.
Make sure your preparation regime is stable. An 8 hour day shift followed for 4 days of 2 hours will not make a dent in the syllabus. A robust 6 hours a day will keep the flow going and will help the revision process as well. Consistency is the key.
Here are a few things to follow throughout the preparation
- The CLAT pattern has changed and now the whole paper is comprehension based. Therefore there will be passages for every question. The more you read, the faster you will get. In an exam which involves a lot of reading and understanding in a limited frame of time, fast and accurate reading is a skill which will take you places.
- There are subjects which changed completely like the maths section is now Quantitative Techniques. Therefore the past papers will not help you score marks in this subject. Stick to the sample and practice papers for subjects like these.
- General Knowledge is now comprehension based as well. It is a possibility that the answers will be in the passage itself. Always make sure you read the questions first and then read the passage in this section as it will save you time and increase the chances of finding the answer in the passage.
- In CLAT 2020, there were several questions which were opinion-based. These are questions which have more than one right answer and you have to choose the one which you think is the most suited. Do not get confused when these questions are asked. Practice more questions of this genre to acquaint yourself.
All the best for the preparation.
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Aditya Anand
Contributing author
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