CLAT 2020 ANALYSIS
Let’s begin typically in CLAT 2020 style by portraying a few lines from the passage encountered in the exam. “The covid-19 pandemic has taken the entire world hostage in less than four months, and the global economy has been hit the hardest with governments across the globe implementing stringent policies including lockdown to control the coronavirus outbreak.” The pandemic today presents unpredicted challenges in day to day lives of people across the globe. The challenges are no way less hard for students, no matter to what age group they belong. Talking specifically about aspirants of various entrance exams, along with hard work and knowledge, patience played a vital role in their preparation.
The updated CLAT 2020 Pattern is given below:
a. Maximum Marks - 150
b. Duration of CLAT 2020 Exam - 02:00 Hours
c. Multiple-Choice Questions - 150 questions of one mark each
d. Negative Marking - 0.25 Mark for each wrong answer
After a wait of 4 long months CLAT 2020 was finally conducted on 28th September 2020. CLAT is organized by the Consortium of National Law Universities consisting of the representative universities. There was a change in pattern, which all the aspirants were aware of, but the shocking part was that the candidates mentioned that the exam was different from the Mocks added by the officials. It was a 2 hours exam. The CLAT 2020 was lengthy and moderately difficult as mentioned by most students coming out of the center. When we mark exams as lengthy, we are not just talking about passages but also options given to check the answer were lengthy. There were a total of 29-30 passages included in the exam comprising the total 150 mark weightage.
LET’S OVERVIEW THE SECTIONS AT A GLANCE.
Current Affairs, including General Knowledge - Current affairs was a tricky and difficult section. Core factual current affairs weren’t asked in the exam. However, analytical based current affairs were asked. There were a total of 7 passages. Students who have followed regular reading as a habit, suggested by faculties and Consortium would have been able to easily mark answers for this section.
It was much recently based unlike AILET i.e. as recent as September. Important recent events like On-going coronavirus Outbreak, National Education Policy, UAE-Israel Peace Deal and Atmanirbhar Bharat Scheme were covered in the exam.
Legal Reasoning - It was a section with questions of moderate difficulty. The questions were easy but all the 8 passages were lengthy and complex. The questions primarily covered the current news around the legal affairs.
Students who have read passages around current legal events would have found the passages in the question paper to be quite familiar to those events. Thus, reading and a good understanding of various important legal terms would have given you an edge over other students in this section as well.
Logical Reasoning - This section was somewhere between Easy to moderate. Critical reasoning dominated this section with easy to moderate questions asked in almost all the 5 passages. Passages were based on Current events which made it easier for students to understand it and mark answers accordingly.
English Language - This section was predictably from Easy to moderate difficulty for most students. As mentioned by Consortium, grammar can be asked in the exam, there were no questions from grammar primarily.
There were no lengthy passages amongst all the 6 passages asked. Contextual Vocabulary was asked in the questions. The topics covered in the questions asked were Figures of speech, Idioms and Phrases etc.
Quantitative Techniques - This was a very difficult section with calculative questions. Geometry based passage was asked. Students who were well-versed with calculations also found all the 3 passages difficult. A set of 5 questions were completely wrong. Strange to believe that the conducting bodies failed to showcase 150 flawless questions in the time span of a year.
If someone asks me, what could be the one mantra to clear CLAT 2020? I would straight away answer him/her - READING. Gone are those days when anything could be achieved only by rote learning. By conducting such exams, universities are portraying the quality of students required to study law. Law is not just a course but a lifelong process of reading, studying and analyzing. And these habits or I say qualities need to be incarnated in the law students.
