CLAT 2020 Paper Analysis

The Consortium of National Law Universities conducted the CLAT 2020 on 28th September 2020. In the view of the Coronavirus pandemic, the exam was conducted through online computer-based and center-based mode at 203 locations across the country.

This year the exam pattern saw a variety of changes; from the mode of conduct to students practising social distancing and following safety protocols at all times, CLAT 2020 was like never before. The Legal Aptitude section was replaced with Legal Reasoning, and the total number of questions was also reduced to 150 from 200.

In this article, we will be analysing the CLAT 2020 paper and see how it has affected the results and what way has it paved for the paper for the coming year. 

Highlights of CLAT 2020 Paper Analysis

Aspect	Analysis
Overall Exam Difficulty	Moderate but Lengthy
Total Exam Duration	2 hours (120 minutes)
Total Questions	150
Total Questions from the English Language	30
Total Questions from Current Affairs & General Knowledge	36
Total Questions from Legal Reasoning	39
Total Questions from Logical Reasoning	30
Total Questions from Quantitative Techniques	15
Total Marks	150
Marking Scheme	+1 for each correct answer, -0.25 for every incorrect answer

Section-wise analysis of CLAT 2020 Paper

There had been certain ups and downs in each section of CLAT 2020. The detailed section-wise analysis is given below:

English Language

The difficulty level of this section in the paper was fairly moderate. The section had a total of six reading comprehensions out of which three were story-based and consisted of word meaning, synonyms, grammatical and inferential questions. The passages were lengthy but easy to comprehend.

Highlights

• This section comprised 30 questions with 6 passages.
• The comprehension passages were based on Climate Change, Boys Locker Room Controversy, and Virtual Reality.
• The story-based questions included excerpts from  ‘The Cat’ by Mary Freeman, ‘The Night Came Slowly’ by Kate Chopin and ‘The Case for the Defence by ‘Graham Greene’.

Current Affairs and General Knowledge

The difficulty level of this examination laid between moderate to slightly difficult. The questions required specific knowledge of the events and reasons affecting it. The questions were formed from topics like Rafale Deal, Atma Nirbhar Bharat Scheme, National Education Policy, SAARC Meeting, UN General Assembly, RBI Policy, Lipulekh Pass (Indo-Nepal) and UAE and Israel Relations.

Highlights

• This section comprised 36 questions with 7 passages.
• The candidates who had a decent preparation of current affairs sections or those who kept a keen eye on the newspapers did fairly well in this section.

Legal Reasoning

This section was a new addition to the CLAT syllabus. Earlier the paper had a Legal Aptitude section which was replaced by the latter. This section was fairly difficult,, and the candidates had to put in a lot of time to read in order to answer the questions.

Highlights

• This section comprised 39 questions with 8 passages.
• The questions were formed from current topics which included Vizag Gas Leak, COVID 19, Lynching in Palghar District, Article 20 (1): Ex post facto laws, Arnab Goswami vs Union of India and Common intention, and some general topics like issue of obscenity, and the principle of natural justice.
• No knowledge based questions were asked in this section; they were mostly generic.

Logical Reasoning

This section was fairly easy but very time consuming. It consisted of passages which took a lot of time to read and solve. There were only two questions based on analytical reasoning. 

Highlights

• This section consisted of 30 questions.
• 28 questions were from Critical Reasoning while only 2 were from Analytical Reasoning.
• The questions in the Critical Reasoning were formed from the anti-alcohol movement, Class 12th CBSE result, work from home during corona pandemic, online classes, and social journalism.
• The two Analytical Reasoning questions were based on matrix puzzle and coding-decoding. 

Quantitative Techniques

This section too was fairly easy as all the questions involved very basic calculations. A graph-based question was asked in the paper. 5 questions from the section were considered to be incorrect.

• This section had 15 questions under 3 sets. 
• Each set had 5 questions based on Bar Graph, Table DI, Geometry/Mensuration.
• Two questions from a set were reported to be incorrect. 

The CLAT paper of 2020 came with a variety of unexpected changes. However, the candidates with strong preparations were able to glide through it. Having a firm preparation is imperative if you wish to crack CLAT. Many students resort to CLAT Coaching for guidance in acing the exam which can act as a catalyst to your preparations and boost your CLAT AIR.