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CLAT 2010 – Detailed Analysis and Estimated Cut-offs

Section (Chronological Order)

Subject No. of questions:

Difficulty Level (Scale of 5)

Average time taken

Comments

Section I English 40 2 25 Easy Section II General

Knowledge 50 3.5 25 Based on Static

GK, mainly; moderate

Section III Legal Aptitude

45 2.5 20 Mostly legal terms were tested; easy to moderate

Section IV Logical Reasoning

45 3 20 Moderate

Section V Mathematics 20 1 15 Very Easy Total No. Of

Questions Overall difficulty

200 Easy to Moderate

Section -Wise Analysis Section I - English: This section was a shade easier than the 2009 paper. According to the inputs from the students, the English section had 40 questions. Following is the (tentative) distribution of the questions of the Section. Sr. No. Topic No. of Questions Difficulty Level 1. Reading Comprehension 10 Easy 2. Idioms 5 Easy 3. Identifying part of speech 3 Easy 4. Vocabulary 10 Easy 5. Spellings 5 Easy 6. Fill in the blanks 4 Easy 7. Para-jumble (Four sentence type) 3 Moderate The paper had a good mix of questions but most of the questions were easy. According to the LST polls (www.lawentrance.com/clatday), 3% of the voters considered this section as the easiest. The passage was a little tough to read but almost all the questions were factual. Identifying part of the speech type questions was a change from last year. A sentence was given and the

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examinee was expected to identify the part of speech for the underlined word. Some of the words tested were ‘must’, ‘very’ etc. Idioms asked in the paper were very easy. These questions hardly posed any challenge to the students. Spelling error questions were also there. ‘Alcohol’ is one of the spelling that was asked in the questions. The difficulty level for the vocabulary questions ranged from easy to difficult. Some of the words asked in the paper were ‘liturgy’, ‘lexicon’ etc. The para-jumble questions were of moderate level of difficulty. For solving the para-jumble questions, an examinee was required to logically arrange four sentences. Fill in the blanks question were also easy. Many students reported that they able to solve the paper in less than 30 minutes. Cut-off for this section should be 30-32. Section II – General Knowledge: Based on the inputs given by the students, this year’s CLAT GK was a combination of Static GK and Current GK. In fact, there were more questions from Static GK as compared to Current GK. Majority of the questions were oriented towards testing the knowledge rather than understanding. The Static GK questions were from History, Geography, Sports, Science and Indian culture. The Current GK questions were mainly from personalities and events segment. It can be said that the GK section was more or less on the pattern of last years’ CLAT papers. The questions had all ranges of difficulty; there were easy, difficult and very difficult questions also. There were questions as easy as World Human Rights Day, National river of India and there were moderately difficult questions also like Nepanagar is famous for, Deodhar trophy belongs to … There were some questions of very high level of difficulty like, the place where Darwin conducted the experiments, the battle of Trafalgar. The overall level of difficulty of the GK section can be termed as MODERATE. Here are some of the memory-based questions with categories based on students’ inputs:

• The Old man and the Sea …(Books and authors) • When did the Battle of Trafalgar take place? (History) • Raj Babbar belongs to which party? (Current GK) • Where would you find Dibru Saikhowa? (Geography) • Deodhar Trophy belongs to…(Sports) • Periyar Sanctuary is located in…(Geography) • C.K. Naidu trophy was awarded to …(Sports) • India was defeated at the Sultan Azlan Shah cup by which country? (Current Sports) • Where would you find the headquarters of ILO? (International organizations) • Akbar died in which year? (History) • Prophet Mohammad was born in which year? (History)

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• British East India company set up its first factory at surat in the reign of which Indian King? (History)

• Which country is also known as ‘Sick Man of Europe’? (Geography) • A.B. Vajpayee and Pervez Musharraf had their meeting in 2001 at which place?

(Miscellaneous) • Which is the National River of India? (Current) • What is the meaning of Fringe Benefit Tax? (Economics) • Which day is celebrated as Human Rights Day? (Miscellaneous) • The year in which Asian Games of 1970 took place? (Sports) • Who is the President of Maldives? (Current) • Who is the Foreign minister of European Union? (Current) • Nepanagar is known for …(Geography) • Where would you find Nehru Institute of Mountaineering? (Geography) • What is the capital of Zimbabwe? (Geography) • Galvanometer is used for the measurement of…(Science) • Darwin conducted his experiments at …(Miscellaneous) • Pyorrhoea disease is associated with …(Science) • Who was the first Chief Information Commissioner (CIC) of India? (Current) • Which country made G7 to G8? (History) • Question on Gyan Sudha Mishra? (Current) • Mahatma Gandhi was not nominated for Nobel prize in which year? (Miscellaneous) • India's emission targets before UNFCCC summit in 09? (Current) • Original name of Munshi Premchand? (Miscellaneous) • Initial name of Shah Jahan was…(History) • Highest number of telephone users based question (Miscellaneous)

As per the polling on (www.lawentrance.com/clatday), GK is marked as the toughest section by the aspirants. More than 75% students FELT THE HEAT and marked GK as toughest. In all, we can say that the section was an interesting blend of easy and moderately difficult questions and about 50% plus questions were directly and indirectly linked /came from our material and the sources that were mentioned for preparation. A score of 32 out of 50 is something that students should score to stay in the race for the best Law Schools. Section III – Legal Aptitude: A huge sigh of relief for most of the students as this section was once again easy. It gained importance this year as the tie of scores would be resolved by the marks scored in this section first. So expect a good fight again. “Legal Reasoning or Legal Knowledge?” This question lingered in the mind of every CLAT candidate and in the run up to CLAT was one of the most asked questions. Perhaps justifying the doubts that everyone (including us!) entertained about this section, there were 5 questions that tested legal reasoning (surprisingly these questions were included in the logical reasoning section) and 45 questions on legal knowledge. Most of these questions tested the knowledge of fundamental legal terminology and thoroughness with the Word Power guide (LST) stood LSTians in good stead.

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The outline of this section is as follows:

• Legal terminology based questions (RTI, CrPC, Ex-parte, Intra Vires, Fiduciary relationship, Corroboration, Requisition etc.).

• Current Affairs- recently appointed woman judge of the Supreme Court of India … • Analogy based questions - Constituent Assembly: Constitution- Parliament -?

Prosecutor: Accused - Plaintiff: ?, President- 35: Rajya Sabha: ? • Miscellaneous- right of husband and wife to each other’s company, medical science

related to criminal investigation, Marriage between Muslims and persons following other religions …

• Most of the questions were from concepts (although an assortment of) that are often used and referred in the media and were covered and conveyed to LSTians in one or the other form (material, discussion on virtual classroom, mock tests, weekly quizzes etc.) and this is an immense source of satisfaction for us.

In the online poll, about 10% described this section as the toughest, as opposed to 4% who were of the opinion that this section was the easiest. Our say is that the level of difficulty of this section was EASY to MODERATE and we believe that a score of 35 + was quite achievable. Section IV – Logical Reasoning: The logical reasoning section was full of surprises. The biggest surprise was inclusion of legal awareness question in logical reasoning part. The following types of the questions were asked in this section: implicit assumption, strong and weak argument, course of action, analogy, coding decoding, series based etc. The critical reasoning questions were aimed to test the candidate’s ability to think logically and to interpret it without any bias. Almost all the questions were easy and a test taker should have attempted all the questions in 30 minutes. Similarly, questions of coding-decoding, series etc were also easy and did not pose any challenge to the LSTians. Section V –Mathematics: As per the LST poll results (www.lawentrance.com/clatday), 82% of the students felt that this was the easiest section of all. This year too, the paper was on the same lines as of the last year. There was hardly any surprise for the students. But only thing required to score very well in the section was ‘Practice’. Any aspirant who has worked on his/her concepts very well can make big difference in the overall ranking. There were a total of 20 questions asked in the section. Out of these questions, most of the questions were based on Arithmetic. The section was again in line with the difficulty level of LST Mocks. So, if a student has sincerely analyzed the LST Mocks, then this section can hardly pose any difficulty to him. As the questions tested only the basic understanding of the topics, for an average aspirant who has Mathematics as his forte, these 20 questions were a

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gift to encash. Thus, the overall difficulty level of the section was easy. Overall an average student must attempt all the questions and with an accuracy of 85%, due to the fact that there was no negative marking. Overall, the paper was of Easy to Moderate level of difficulty. As a result, the cut-offs will also be expected to be high. General Knowledge being the spoil sport for some and troublesome for others, we can expect the cut-offs to be lower than last years’. But once again there will be close fight for the top NLUs as most of them will score equally well. Estimated Cut-offs for Different Law Schools The estimated cut-offs provided below are subject to a minor variation of +/- 5 marks. Further, a lot will also depend upon the preferences filled in by you in your Application form. Following our last year’s methodology, we are not providing cut-offs for individual colleges. The cut-offs given below are as per the ‘hierarchy’ of law schools. (Visit www.lawentrance.com/rankings.htm for details) National Law School Expected Cut-off Tier I 145 – 160 Tier II 135 – 140 Tier III (includes Lucknow, Patna, Patiala and Kochi)

120 – 125

As we all know, in case of clash of scores, the Legal Aptitude section will decide the tiebreaker. And being a moderate paper there would be many students ending up with same marks. We hope you’ll continue with your good habits like reading newspapers, books, magazines etc. that you have been doing for so many months now. Your efforts and dedication will definitely give you the much sought after place in the top law schools. The fight is over, but the result is still awaited. All the Best for your results. The LST Team