CLAT UG Legal Reasoning: Preparation Strategies and Exam Format

In this article Preparation Strategies and Exam Format of CLAT UG Legal Reasoning has been discussed.

Introduction

Top Ranking NLU and a Good AIR score are what every law aspirant seeks while preparing for CLAT. While these are important, it is also important to have the discipline, and efficient study plan, and thorough knowledge of the format of the paper in order to attempt the maximum questions correctly in the given time and weightage of questions.

While the level of the paper is medium to difficult is important for the candidate to know the form of questions, the pattern of question is in order to score a good score. Given below are everything a candidate needs to know in order to plan efficiently and develop a good study strategy.

I. Forms of Questions

The questions in this section will be based on –

• News articles and books associated with topics of law.
• Certain passages will be created specifically for the exam.
• The focus is on you doing the work to find the facts and applicable rules by yourself in a situation. The consortium believes that this is closer to real-life practice.
• The purpose is not to test the knowledge of the law but the application of rules to a factual context based on the constraints presented to you.
• Knowing and being able to reason is much more useful than just knowing the rules.
• Engaging regularly with legal materials in popular news will give you all the factual context you need. You need not be reading heavy legal terms.

II. Exam Format

Each passage will be followed by a series of questions in which you will be required to –

• Identify the principle or principles from the passage and apply it or them to the facts in the passage, or another set of facts.
• Understand the impact of a change to the principle or the facts on how the altered principle may apply to such altered facts.
• Identify potential outcomes of the principle on various fact situations that may not be covered in the passage, with or without alterations to the principle.

III. Preparation Strategies

• The Legal Reasoning, Logical Reasoning, and English Language sections of CLAT UG are somewhat related, in the sense that they all require you to read and comprehend a passage well. As such, some of the preparation techniques that apply to the English Language and Logical Reasoning sections of the UG CLAT 2021 may also serve you well for this section. See if you want to schedule your preparation time such that you focus on these three subjects as a group.
• Since this section of the UG CLAT 2021 is somewhat different from previous years’ papers, you may think that it would not be helpful to attempt Legal Reasoning questions from previous years’ papers, but this would be a mistake. While the previous years’ questions may not ask you to pull out a principle from a passage, and may instead supply the principle directly to you, there is still great value in attempting those questions, since they will help you develop the skill of analyzing a principle, examining a fact situation closely, and applying one to the other.
• The sample questions and Model Papers provided by the CLAT Consortium would, of course, be one of the best sources of preparation. If you are already familiar with the pattern of these questions from the sample questions or the First Model Paper, consider attempting this section in the later Model Papers (or indeed, the entire paper) in something similar to an actual test environment – time yourself, and make sure you do not take any external help in attempting these questions. Then, analyze the results and try and determine what’s going right, and what isn’t – are you able to pull out the principle but not break it down? Or are you able to deal with the principle easily, but can’t understand the fact situations properly? If the first, perhaps some extra work on Logical Reasoning may help; if the second, maybe you should spend a little more time on the English Language preparations.

---

Source: Official Website – Consortium of National Law Universities, Available Here

---

1. Law Library: Notes and Study Material for LLB, LLM, Judiciary and Entrance Exams
2. Legal Bites Academy – Ultimate Test Prep Destination