CLAT is an acronym for Common Law Admission Test which is a national level entrance test conducted by National Law Universities in India. The test for CLAT 2020 is for admission into the law courses in the premier institutes of the country. It is a single entrance exam you must write to be eligible to apply for admission to 21 National Law Universities (NLUs) and 43 other such institutes in India. One of these National Law Universities out of the pool of 21 conducts CLAT exam every year and this is done on a rotational basis based on the seniority of the NLU going by its establishment year. CLAT exam is for admissions to both the Under-Graduate (UG), and Post-Graduate (PG) programs offered in the country.
Eligibility
For UG Courses: CLAT 2020 exam is taken after passing Higher Secondary Examination (Class XII) or its equivalent degree certificate from a recognized board with equal to or greater than 45% aggregate in all subjects combined (40% for SC/ST category candidates). There is no maximum age limit criteria to appear in CLAT exam for UG courses.
For PG Courses: The eligibility criteria here is that a candidate needs to have a UG degree (LL. B or B.L.) from a recognized university with equal to or less than 55% aggregate (50% for SC/ST category candidates) in all subjects considered. If a candidate had a backlog in his UG and cleared the exam with a re-attempt or supplementary, then he/she is also eligible to sit for CLAT by providing the proof of 55% aggregate in UG.
The duration of the CLAT exam is two hours which will be conducted on 10 May 2020 this year in the traditional pen-paper mode in The English language. From this year, the question paper will have 150 multiple-choice questions (MCQs) for UG exam from 200 questions that used to come until last year. For the PG courses exam, there will be 100 multiple choice questions with 2 subjective questions.
For UG courses: For UG law program, the question paper consisting of 150 questions will be comprehension based from a variety of subjects including Quantitative Aptitude, English (grammar and comprehension), Current Affairs, Logical Reasoning, and General Knowledge etc. Given below is the section-wise breakup of the number of questions from each section:
| English | 28-32 questions |
| Logical Reasoning | 28-32 questions |
| Quantitative Aptitude | 13-17 questions |
| GK & Current Affairs | 35-39 questions |
| Legal Reasoning | 35-39 questions |
There will be 150 questions of 1 mark each and a wrong answer will attract a penalty of 0.25 marks. The questions in the quantitative aptitude section will be based up to class X standard elementary mathematics.
For PG courses: For the PG entrance exam, the number of multiple-choice questions is comparatively less when compared to the UG counterpart. Here, you will find 100 MCQs of 100 marks (1 mark per question). Out of this, 40 questions are from Constitutional Law and the remaining 60 questions are from other law subjects from UG. These subjects are Jurisprudence, Torts Law, Criminal Law, Law of Contracts, Intellectual Property Law, Family Law etc.
Now the big question is,
Is CLAT a difficult exam to crack?
Both Yes and No, there is no perfect answer to this question.. Yes, it’s not that problematic exam because the nature of questions in the exam are generic and requires basic understanding and strong fundamentals. If you are decent in English and have a reading habit, then two sections are sorted for you. Mathematics is only class X level; thus a little brush up of important concepts is enough to crack this section. Legal Reasoning is one area where you have to put some extra effort to sail through and you might want to join a coaching institute.
Now what makes it a tough -competition since seats are allocated on a pro-rata basis and the number of seats are few? Usually, 55,000-60,000 aspirants write CLAT every year on an average to get those 2500 seats (approx.) in the premier institutes in the UG CLAT and 700 seats in PG CLAT. Now, almost all these institutes have a reservation for special category candidates making the number of seats even lesser. Your performance in the exam also depends on how others have performed.
Regular practice of concepts for 3-4 months with constant revision is enough to crack CLAT and enter your dream Law School.
Check out the details about CLAT 2020 at https://www.shiksha.com/law/clat-exam
