CLAT (Common Law Admission Test), conducted by the Consortium of NLUs, is a gateway for a law aspirant into a new, dynamic and extraordinary dimension of law. It is conducted annually for admission in NLUs across the country. Some private and self-earned universities also take admission based on CLAT scores. Clat has become a prominent milestone for a law student to achieve.
After the enjoyment of 12 years of school life from nursery to 9th standard, a student is then burdened with the pressure of board exams. After the stressful board exams, a student is then advanced to level 2, i.e., competitive exams. Many aspirants can relate to this quote “Life is a race…if you don’t run fast… you’ll be like a broken andaa”, from my point of view this quote is partially correct which is you have to run fast to achieve what you desire but you’ll never be a “broken andaa”.
Many people even after passing their boards don’t understand that the real game changer is not “Chatur” but “Rancho”. They don’t understand the difference between memorizing and understanding. This is the first lesson that competitive exam teaches us to focus on understanding rather than memorizing. Secondly, it creates enthusiasm in students and they strive to perform better than their peers.
Competitive exams also help out in choosing a career as students start identifying their areas of interest while getting a deeper knowledge of subjects. Sometimes, competitive exams give the student some failures to enhance his/her resilience and learn from the mistakes. In this essay, I’ll be talking about the most prominent and desirable exam in my field ‘LAW’.
NLUs
An NLU (National Law University) is a prestigious university that provides a new viewpoint of law to a law student, opening different horizons to see, apply and practice law. It opens up opportunities to continue law as a profession. There are currently 26 NLUs in India out of which 24 are in consortium and accept admission through CLAT.
NLU Delhi and NLU Meghalaya have their separate entrance exams namely AILET (All India Law Entrance Test) and NLU MEG UAT (NLU Meghalaya undergraduate admission test). The oldest NLU of them is NLSIU (National Law School of India University) Bangalore. And the newest is NLU Meghalaya.
CLAT exam started in 2008 where initially it was an MCQs based and offline. It continued till 2014 and then in 2015 a revised MoU was signed to include other seven NLUs within the ambit of CLAT and CLAT went online. But in 2018 the Consortium of NLUs decided to make CLAT offline. From then on, the CLAT exam is taken in offline form with MCQ-based question types.
There are many subjects in the CLAT exam, but the most significant sections are English, Logical Reasoning, General Knowledge, Legal Reasoning and Quantitative Aptitude. The most difficult and challenging sections for me were English and a sub-section in Logical Reasoning namely Verbal Reasoning. Both are sections with giant passages and following questions to answer, but I was a very lazy reader and was not interested in reading for a longer duration.
I lost interest while reading long texts and couldn’t find the answers to the questions. I started practising reading and working on regression. The easiest subject for me was Legal Reasoning because it was new to me and I had an interest in reading it. I also joined a coaching institute for further guidance. The tutors over there were very helpful and very inspiring. They dragged me into the grind and I was shown the reality in my first few mock tests.
One of the most important things in CLAT exam is the time because there were 150 questions to answer in 2 hours, and there is a 600- 700 word passage for every 5- 6 questions. Now, the consortium has changed the pattern and there are only 120 questions in 2 hours. We had to answer maximum answers in 2 hours while keeping in mind the negative marking. There is a +1 for every right answer and a -1/4 for wrong answers.
The best books for CLAT preparation according to me are “Word Power Made Easy” by Norman Lewis, “English Grammar and Composition” by Wren and Martin, and “Legal Awareness and Legal Reasoning” by A.P. Bharadwaj, “Static General Knowledge” by A. P. Bharadwaj. And I got some course books from the coaching institute, they were very helpful. Mock tests are a must and are to be given often for better evaluation of knowledge and its application.
This was my journey, I prepared for around a year in the coaching institute and took two CLAT attempts and passed in neither. But today I’m in an NLU. This was made possible due to research work. Everyone should do extensive research in their field to grab the hidden opportunities. Thank you for listening to me and I wish for your success in your field.
By: Gautam Jha
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