SRIRAM LAW ACADEMY

TRAINING ORGANISATION FOR CLAT & IIT HSEE

www.sriramlawacademy.com

STRATEGIES FOR CRACKING CLAT 2019

26th May, Sunday will be a very significant day for all of you in this year’s calendar. All your hard work,
dedication, sacrifice in the last one year will finally fructify into your desired goal.

With a few days to go for the D-day, what can you do to give your best shot at CLAT?

General Knowledge:
Page | 1
This section will include questions both from current affairs as well as static general knowledge. For tackling
current affairs, focus on issues that prevailed between June 2018 and April 2019. To make sure you have
exhausted the ones which are relevant to the above-mentioned period, just go through the following check list.

• Are you thorough with the entire National and International Awards that were given away during this
period?
• Are you thorough with all National and International Appointments?
• Are you thorough with Political developments in India and other major countries?
• Are you thorough with Economic issues in India and other countries during this period?
• Are you thorough with all persons, both at the national and international level who made news for the
right as well as wrong reasons, including the ones who passed away?
• Do you have a complete round-up of all major sporting events and sport persons in this period?
• Are you thorough with the names of significant books written by popular authors, which were released
in this period?
• Are you aware of major legal developments in the country?
• If your answer is a clear and conscientious ‘YES’ to all the above, then you are ready to take on the
current affairs section of CLAT.

Difficulty level could range from simple to moderate level.

Ideal Score Range: 35-40

English

This is usually a predictable section which will have a comprehension passage and questions based on it
including vocabulary. Other parts of this segment may comprise of questions on usage of Grammar, Error
Detection and Sentence Sequencing. A separate section on vocabulary based on Latin legal / foreign words
can also be expected as a part of vocabulary.

Difficulty level could range from simple to moderate level.

Ideal Score Range: 30 -35

Math

In tune with the instructions given on www.clat.ac.in, the twenty problems expected in this section are of
elementary standard and likely to cover topics such as time & work, time & distance, age, calendar, simple &
compound interest, ratio and proportion etc.,

Difficulty level anticipated is only of moderate level.

Ideal Score Range: 15-18

SRIRAM LAW ACADEMY – India’s Premier Institution for CLAT [Common Law Admission Test] and IIT HSEE [Humanities and Social Sciences Entrance Exam of IIT]
 SRIRAM LAW ACADEMY
TRAINING ORGANISATION FOR CLAT & IIT HSEE
www.sriramlawacademy.com

STRATEGIES FOR CRACKING CLAT 2019

Legal Reasoning

The section which could make or break your dream is this section with 50 questions based on legal reasoning.
The reasoning skills honed by you will be put to test. Read the following tips carefully and apply these pointers
to crack questions on legal reasoning.

How should you approach “Legal Reasoning Questions? Page | 2

Take your time, especially if you think the question is not straight-forward – it could be one of those questions
which may be your ticket into a good law school. Generally, the legal reasoning question has three elements:
the principles, the facts, and the options. It may also contain distractions. An elementary legal reasoning
question can be solved by merely applying the given principle. However, if the legal reasoning questions have 3-
4 principles, then you must follow the tips given below.

A. Principles

The principles are a verbal representation of logical reasoning. The principles may contain two or more limbs of
reasoning which may be connected to each other.

Conflicting Principles

Some legal principles may operate in two conflicting spheres (for example, regulation of journalists who may use
sting operations to uncover stories, and child sexual abuse) – determine the right answer by logically determining
the applicability of the principles. Emotions, opinions, political views should not influence the elimination of
opinions. Sometimes, a hard-core wife-beating criminal may not be liable because of a loophole in the law. It is
important to demonstrate that you can be dispassionate while viewing conflicting options on a sensitive issue.

The extraneous principle

A principle may also be inapplicable to the problem, and you may have to decide not to apply the principle.
This will be a time-consuming question. The decision to eliminate a principle may occur at the level of the first,
or second, or final reading of the problem.

If, after you have formed your idea of the problem, a certain principle seems to function as a distraction when
you identify an option which would resolve the problem without using that particular principle, and the principle
itself stands excluded as a result of your reasoning, and the correct option you identified, decide to eliminate
the principle.

B. The facts

They require more than a superficial understanding of the facts: you need to apply the principles on a basic
level, exclude what is not applicable, and then apply the remaining limbs of the principle.

C. Options
▪ Focus on eliminating options with the first and second reading. You will gauge the difficulty level of the
question by the time you are doing the third reading, and left with two options which seem equally
likely.
▪ Sometimes, all options may seem to be the right answer- but with different (wrong) reasoning in the
option. In that case, pick the option which is in line the given legal principle.

SRIRAM LAW ACADEMY – India’s Premier Institution for CLAT [Common Law Admission Test] and IIT HSEE [Humanities and Social Sciences Entrance Exam of IIT]
 SRIRAM LAW ACADEMY
TRAINING ORGANISATION FOR CLAT & IIT HSEE
www.sriramlawacademy.com

STRATEGIES FOR CRACKING CLAT 2019

Final Step: Checking the answer

A typical question will include the following elements: more than one legal principle(s); Facts; Extraneous
elements in both facts, and in principles; and distractions. You need to have understood the question from the
point of view of the framer, to the point you are able to look back at the question, and pinpoint the distractions
in the question.
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The answer has to account for every facet of the question: the facts, the principles, and in the event any
fact/principle has been excluded as being inapplicable, operate without that fact/principle which was
categorized as extraneous.

Ideal Score Range: 35 - 40

Logical Reasoning

You can expect an array of questions on Puzzles, syllogisms, statement – conclusions, statement –
assumptions, cause and effect, course of action, strong and weak arguments, assertion reasoning, blood
relations, direction sense test, number analogy and critical reasoning based questions. Make sure, you have
an uncluttered state of mind to crack these questions.

While solving Puzzles, draw diagram / chart for the situation given and proceed. Ensure that all data given in
the question have been used.

While solving Syllogism based questions based on 2 statements and 2 conclusions, it would be safer to go with
the “Rules” as given in the SRIRAM Module. When you find 2 or more statements and 3 or more conclusions,
draw “Venn Diagrams” for arriving at the appropriate option. If the statements given warrant 2 or more
diagrams, do draw as many diagrams required and identify the common solution. It would appear time-
consuming, but let us reiterate here that it is worth it. Every single score add to your aggregate score would
enhance your chances in this tight race.

While solving questions on “Critical Reasoning”, read the questions carefully; look for key words such as
“except”, “parallel”, “strengthen”, “weaken”, “If it is false that”, “If it is true that”, “contradicts”, “inferred”,
etc., Go through all the questions given in our mocks / tests. When you follow all these, you are sure to
succeed.

Ideal Score Range: 30 - 35

How should you tackle the impact of negative marking?

➢ In any aptitude test with negative marking, it is important to remember that attempting 100% questions is
not safe.
➢ It is always maximum correct answers rather than maximum number of questions attempted that
matters. However, aim at attempting at least 180+ questions.
➢ Once you are done with all the “sure shot questions”, move on to the questions, where you could
eliminate two out of four options. With these questions, you can make intelligent guesses.
➢ Finally, attempt the difficult ones and shade the answer only, if you can successfully eliminate 3 options.
➢ Skip questions, you are unsure of.
➢ Forget, attempting questions in a sequential order.
➢ Don’t waste time struggling with any single question Learn to move on.

SRIRAM LAW ACADEMY – India’s Premier Institution for CLAT [Common Law Admission Test] and IIT HSEE [Humanities and Social Sciences Entrance Exam of IIT]
 SRIRAM LAW ACADEMY
TRAINING ORGANISATION FOR CLAT & IIT HSEE
www.sriramlawacademy.com

STRATEGIES FOR CRACKING CLAT 2019

TIME MANAGEMENT STRATEGIES

Here you go What should you do? Time left

First 10 minutes Tackle the G.K. section first, by spending not more than 10 1 hr 50 min
minutes on it.
Next 30 minutes Now, 10 minutes are gone, 150 questions to handle. At this 1 hr 20 min Page | 4
stage, crack the legal reasoning section. Set apart 30 minutes
for the same. Without, worrying about other sections, give your
100% concentration to these questions.
Next 30 minutes With only 80 minutes left, embark on solving logical reasoning 50 min
questions and devote not more than 30 minutes.
Next 35 minutes At this stage, with only English and Maths segments remaining, 15 min
choose the one you are comfortable with and do that section
first, followed by the other. Spend 15 minutes on Maths and 20
minutes on English.
Last 10 minutes Go back to unfinished questions in legal or logic and complete Time over
it.

General Tips:

01 Exhaust Sriram online mock tests by 24th May 2019

02 Download all Mock Tests, Sriram Law Times, current affairs supplement from our website
03 Revise all current affairs questions, Legal awareness questions from all Sriram Mocks.
04 In the last few days leading to the exam, focus only on current affairs and completing all
Mock tests.
05 Do not attempt to learn anything new in Logic or Math section at this stage.
06 CLAT is not only a test of your knowledge, but is a test of your nerves, so completely de-
stress yourself the day before CLAT. Remain unemotional about the outcome of the
exam.
07 Stick to the time management tips given above.
08 Beware of time-consuming questions especially in math and logic. Always attempt
questions you know and then move on to the other ones.
09 Practice meditation or any relaxation technique to stay focused and calm through the
exam. Prepare your mind to expect surprises in CLAT. Every year, one or two segments
are made quite tough.
10 Have a good night’s sleep and avoid last minute preparation.

We wish you phenomenal success in CLAT 2019 and do email us your exam feedback.

SRIRAM LAW ACADEMY TEAM

SRIRAM LAW ACADEMY – India’s Premier Institution for CLAT [Common Law Admission Test] and IIT HSEE [Humanities and Social Sciences Entrance Exam of IIT]