CLAT requires constant practice and it has been stressed upon time and again. There is one subject in particular which demands constant attention and if you skip a couple of months, it can cost you your seat in your dream college.
Current Affairs section needs a daily investment of atleast an hour, this has to be done for a year so that you are aware of all the important Social, Economic, Legal, and Political events of the year. These categories combined will help you score a good score in the exam.
There used to be static GK under this section but now the pattern has changed since CLAT 2020.
What was the most attractive part of this section?
The ability to solve 50 questions in under 10 minutes in an exam where the race was against time. Whether you knew the answer or not, it saved a lot of time.
How?
The questions were short and to the point.
And now?
There will be passages which will eat your time before you can even read the questions and decide whether you want to attempt or not because the one thing that has not changed is NEGATIVE MARKING.
The questions will be from:
- Contemporary events of significance from India and the world;
- Arts and culture;
- International affairs; and
- Historical events of continuing significance.
So how do we prepare?
The General Knowledge section has been replaced by a complete Current Affairs section. This means, there will be no static GK questions.
This also means that unlike the past, current affairs questions will be asked from the whole previous year. These questions need not be solely from the legal arena.
This section will also be comprehension based.
- A thorough reading of a good national daily is highly advised and that notes be maintained for each day.
- While reading, special attention to the editorial sections since they are based on the current affairs and polish vocabulary of the candidate.
- One good magazine like Competition in Focus or Outlook can be referred on a monthly basis, to sum up, the affairs of the month.
- Watching an hour of news daily to know about the daily events of the world is advised. Please do not waste time over prime time debates, instead, go for Doordarshan news or All India Radio News.
How to approach questions in the Current Affairs including General Knowledge section of the UG CLAT 2021
- Questions intended to test depth of understanding of issues and events of significance,rather than mere fact- or trivia-based superficial knowledge.
- While the focus is on more recent and current events, questions may test you on historical information related to such events and significance, in order to better gauge your understanding of the causes of such current events.
- Questions may also relate to matters associated with the events mentioned in the passage – for a passage about a natural calamity for example, you may face questions not only about that natural calamity, but similar events in other parts of the world.
- Make sure you read the entire passage before you attempt the questions – while the answers to some questions may seem apparent to you, you would be able to pick up valuable clues about the answers to other questions by ensuring you read the entire passage first.
- Don’t worry about whether you will remember all the elements of the passage when you come to the questions – the idea is not to test your ability to memorise the passage and answer questions that test your recollection – but do make sure you have a good idea of the overall theme or point of focus of the passage, as this may help jog your memory about any related information you may have read or come across in your preparations.
- In line with the overall theme of the UG CLAT 2021, the focus is on comprehension, and your ability to understand and decode the information set out in the passage. While you may not be asked vocabulary questions in this section of the paper, you may be asked the meaning of certain statements made in the passage, insofar as they relate to information associated with such statements – for example, a passage relating to cyclones may ask you what the difference is between a cyclone, typhoon, and hurricane.
- As with all the other sections of the UG CLAT 2021, make sure you pay close attention to the wording of the questions – the question setters may be examining your ability to read and follow text closely, and so, may frame questions in a negative manner (e.g., Which of the following is not an example of x?) or may use a double negative as well (e.g., Instead of asking which of the following is an efficient way to do x, the question may be framed as: Which of the following is not an inefficient way to do x.)
Keep your learning hat on and prepare well.