This time we decided to come up with something useful for the law aspirants. In this post, we introduce Nazuk Kumar from Chandigarh who got through CLAT, NLU-Delhi Entrance as well IIT-JEE. Her rank in CLAT was 12 and 4 in NLU-D. Despite having Board Exam and doing wonderfully in it, she managed to do so well in law entrances as well as IIT. We thought we shall ask her about how she went about her preparation and we are glad that we did. She had some wonderful strategies and tips for those who are preparing for CLAT 2010. Nazuk is now studying in IIT, Delhi. We thank her for her contribution and wish her all the best. I would like to thank Abhyudaya Agarwal for helping with this post. Look forward to some interesting posts from him in the near future.
Come class eleven and every teenager in India is subjected to the pangs of career dilemma and parental pressures. For me somehow the choice was more than clear. Being a ninety-five plus percenter in class ten in India predetermines that science is the thing for you. And never having had a particular aversion to science I took up non-medical stream. However, a few months into the grind, I wanted to explore more and law had always fascinated me.
It was only by the end of class eleven that I finally decided to pursue law. At the end of the whole journey I would say that the Common Law Admission Test (CLAT) is more about the drive of getting into a top law school than about hard core studying. For me, National Law School, Bangalore became THE College, an obsession and not just an interest.
However, since I had one year of JEE coaching behind me, for optimum utilization I continued with both the options. I would study law for about 2 hours a day and slightly more on weekends. My preparation was most vigorous in June and July.
As far as the academic part of CLAT is concerned I would suggest the following:
English- One should begin with “Word Power Made Easy” by Norman Lewis. Read it as a textbook, make notes. Editorials in the daily newspaper titled THE HINDU are a must read right from the beginning (the newspaper is not published from all the major cities of India; you can get an edition of it with a maximum of one day's delay). One must never overlook even the most absurd looking words. And of course do the course modules from your coaching class diligently. If you are still not satisfied you could read a few novels. Practising from the usage section in Wren & Martin or Oxford reference books is helpful. You could say that vocabulary has not been questioned in the past two CLATs, however, personally I feel vocabulary is the only method of gaining command and confidence in English. Due importance must be paid to the usage of new words, grammar and tense as well.
Maths- The starting point is: DO NOT FEAR MATHS. It is probably THE subject that will give you the advantage on the final day. Try and cover the theory of all the chapters first, at a comfortable pace. Then do every problem from all the exercises in the module. Do not miss out on even a single question. Once you get a good hang of the subject, then do the same exercises with a set time limit of at least 1 question per minute. If you still want more practice, go back to your class 8, 9, 10 NCERT (for others, whatever book you studied from in school) books and cover the relevant chapters. This will be a major confidence booster.
Logic- This is a very crucial area. It is easy to mess it up yet if you get it right it can become a major advantage. Read up ‘Verbal & Non Verbal Reasoning’ by R. S. Aggarwal thoroughly. Follow your coaching class study material painstakingly. After building a basic understanding of logic from R. S. Aggarwal you should be comfortable with logical reasoning. Follow this up with the logical reasoning questions not the English or Puzzle section in the LSAT (the entrance test for studying law in U.S. Law Schools). There is plenty of material available on the internet for free download. There are also guides that you could buy from the market. The one published by Kaplan is very famous. Do at least ten critical reasoning questions everyday and analyse where you went wrong.
Legal Reasoning & Legal G.K. - both the sections are equally important. For legal reasoning DO NOT pick up a law text book. Stick to your study material. That is the only way you can ensure that you do not apply your extra knowledge and stick to the principle given.
As for the knowledge section I would suggest a thorough reading “Legal Knowledge” and “Constitution” in the Guide to L.L.B. published by Universal (it has about 1000 exhaustive MCQs on the Indian Constitution). A reading of the main articles (Fundamental Rights, Directive Principles, Emergency Provisions, Ordinance Provisions, Election Commission, Union Public Service Commission, Attorney General and Advocate General, Comptroller & Auditor General, Courts and other important articles) from the “Constitution of India” is a must. The Constitution of India is freely available on the internet.
General Knowledge- This section is the key to the whole examination. It is the most important section and it has the widest scope. It is also very scoring. Follow the “Civil Services Chronicle” for at least a year prior to the date of yours giving the CLAT and other law entrances. While reading materials, keep in mind that you should be extremely exam oriented. Underline the factual portion of the articles on which questions could possibly be framed (only facts are needed, as it is a purely objective exam). Upon the second reading make notes that you can refer to a month before the entrance. This is very important as by that time you would have information from at least 10 Chronicles to remember. Also do not miss reading the front page of ‘The Hindu’. This takes good care of current affairs.
For static GK, revise history thoroughly at Class 10 level. Also look up basics of Geography, Indian Polity, Economics and International Affairs (a lot of this will be covered in the Chronicles too). Also Pearsons latest GK manual is very helpful. If you still have time you could go through the Manorama Yearbook.
Finally, do Universals Guide to B.A., L.L.B. at least twice. This year both the law exams (CLAT and NLU-Delhi Entrance) were highly based on this book. Pearsons book is also very helpful; its standard is slightly better than universals. Cover all the questions in these two books.
Take your study material provided by your coaching centre VERY seriously. Don’t fool around in the classroom sessions, if you have taken them. Do your module and your exercises.
It is very important to have an idea of the pattern of the paper. Do all the past years question papers. Find out about the law university that is setting the paper for the relevant year and the pattern they followed earlier in their individual entrance tests before the CLAT came into force. Also see the past two CLATs and make your own judgement.
Another major factor in CLAT is time management. Strategize the two hours you have to do the question paper. I even went to the extent of practicing marking on OMR Sheets (on which you are expected to shade the ovals with pencil) so that I wasted minimum time on that. You can experiment the same during your mocks. Mocks are a perfect platform for self evaluation and improvement. Always be on the quest of getting a better rank. It is also very important to analyse your mistakes after the test. Be sure that if you have done a question in the mock test, you will never get it wrong.
Do your internet homework well (by this I mean, if you read about something, look it up on the internet), especially the mock test questions. For example, if the question says, “Who won the Bharat Ratna 2006?”, apart from knowing the answer, read more on the “Bharat Ratna” (find a website with detailed information on the Bharat Ratna), when it was instituted, by whom, who were the first awardees, in which fields is it given, who are the foreigners to have received it, when was it discontinued, etc.
Once you have done all of the above, you should have covered sufficient ground. You will know what is relevant and what is not. And you want to look for more material to work on.
Finally, keep your motivation high. Getting into the law college must be an obsession. Keep pictures in your room for inspiration. Talk to people who are already there. My seniors were my best inspiration and guide. Do group study. And remember that if you work hard NO ONE can stop you from getting in.
It is important to be diligent and complete what you have set out to do. You don’t need to make unreasonable or excessive sacrifices regarding. You need not forgo chatting, facebook, phone calls, movies, etc.- just monitor them a bit. Do everything in a planned manner. Don’t just randomly sit online and waste the whole day. Once your exam is over you will get plenty of time to do that too.
So that is roughly what I did for CLAT. At the same time my JEE classes used to be on. I was able to fairly juggle between the two. Today, at the end of the day, I have finally decided to join IIT Delhi and not NLS, Bangalore for my own personal career reasons. Although it was one of the toughest things to refuse NLS, I am confident I won’t regret this decision.
Come class eleven and every teenager in India is subjected to the pangs of career dilemma and parental pressures. For me somehow the choice was more than clear. Being a ninety-five plus percenter in class ten in India predetermines that science is the thing for you. And never having had a particular aversion to science I took up non-medical stream. However, a few months into the grind, I wanted to explore more and law had always fascinated me.
It was only by the end of class eleven that I finally decided to pursue law. At the end of the whole journey I would say that the Common Law Admission Test (CLAT) is more about the drive of getting into a top law school than about hard core studying. For me, National Law School, Bangalore became THE College, an obsession and not just an interest.
However, since I had one year of JEE coaching behind me, for optimum utilization I continued with both the options. I would study law for about 2 hours a day and slightly more on weekends. My preparation was most vigorous in June and July.
As far as the academic part of CLAT is concerned I would suggest the following:
English- One should begin with “Word Power Made Easy” by Norman Lewis. Read it as a textbook, make notes. Editorials in the daily newspaper titled THE HINDU are a must read right from the beginning (the newspaper is not published from all the major cities of India; you can get an edition of it with a maximum of one day's delay). One must never overlook even the most absurd looking words. And of course do the course modules from your coaching class diligently. If you are still not satisfied you could read a few novels. Practising from the usage section in Wren & Martin or Oxford reference books is helpful. You could say that vocabulary has not been questioned in the past two CLATs, however, personally I feel vocabulary is the only method of gaining command and confidence in English. Due importance must be paid to the usage of new words, grammar and tense as well.
Maths- The starting point is: DO NOT FEAR MATHS. It is probably THE subject that will give you the advantage on the final day. Try and cover the theory of all the chapters first, at a comfortable pace. Then do every problem from all the exercises in the module. Do not miss out on even a single question. Once you get a good hang of the subject, then do the same exercises with a set time limit of at least 1 question per minute. If you still want more practice, go back to your class 8, 9, 10 NCERT (for others, whatever book you studied from in school) books and cover the relevant chapters. This will be a major confidence booster.
Logic- This is a very crucial area. It is easy to mess it up yet if you get it right it can become a major advantage. Read up ‘Verbal & Non Verbal Reasoning’ by R. S. Aggarwal thoroughly. Follow your coaching class study material painstakingly. After building a basic understanding of logic from R. S. Aggarwal you should be comfortable with logical reasoning. Follow this up with the logical reasoning questions not the English or Puzzle section in the LSAT (the entrance test for studying law in U.S. Law Schools). There is plenty of material available on the internet for free download. There are also guides that you could buy from the market. The one published by Kaplan is very famous. Do at least ten critical reasoning questions everyday and analyse where you went wrong.
Legal Reasoning & Legal G.K. - both the sections are equally important. For legal reasoning DO NOT pick up a law text book. Stick to your study material. That is the only way you can ensure that you do not apply your extra knowledge and stick to the principle given.
As for the knowledge section I would suggest a thorough reading “Legal Knowledge” and “Constitution” in the Guide to L.L.B. published by Universal (it has about 1000 exhaustive MCQs on the Indian Constitution). A reading of the main articles (Fundamental Rights, Directive Principles, Emergency Provisions, Ordinance Provisions, Election Commission, Union Public Service Commission, Attorney General and Advocate General, Comptroller & Auditor General, Courts and other important articles) from the “Constitution of India” is a must. The Constitution of India is freely available on the internet.
General Knowledge- This section is the key to the whole examination. It is the most important section and it has the widest scope. It is also very scoring. Follow the “Civil Services Chronicle” for at least a year prior to the date of yours giving the CLAT and other law entrances. While reading materials, keep in mind that you should be extremely exam oriented. Underline the factual portion of the articles on which questions could possibly be framed (only facts are needed, as it is a purely objective exam). Upon the second reading make notes that you can refer to a month before the entrance. This is very important as by that time you would have information from at least 10 Chronicles to remember. Also do not miss reading the front page of ‘The Hindu’. This takes good care of current affairs.
For static GK, revise history thoroughly at Class 10 level. Also look up basics of Geography, Indian Polity, Economics and International Affairs (a lot of this will be covered in the Chronicles too). Also Pearsons latest GK manual is very helpful. If you still have time you could go through the Manorama Yearbook.
Finally, do Universals Guide to B.A., L.L.B. at least twice. This year both the law exams (CLAT and NLU-Delhi Entrance) were highly based on this book. Pearsons book is also very helpful; its standard is slightly better than universals. Cover all the questions in these two books.
Take your study material provided by your coaching centre VERY seriously. Don’t fool around in the classroom sessions, if you have taken them. Do your module and your exercises.
It is very important to have an idea of the pattern of the paper. Do all the past years question papers. Find out about the law university that is setting the paper for the relevant year and the pattern they followed earlier in their individual entrance tests before the CLAT came into force. Also see the past two CLATs and make your own judgement.
Another major factor in CLAT is time management. Strategize the two hours you have to do the question paper. I even went to the extent of practicing marking on OMR Sheets (on which you are expected to shade the ovals with pencil) so that I wasted minimum time on that. You can experiment the same during your mocks. Mocks are a perfect platform for self evaluation and improvement. Always be on the quest of getting a better rank. It is also very important to analyse your mistakes after the test. Be sure that if you have done a question in the mock test, you will never get it wrong.
Do your internet homework well (by this I mean, if you read about something, look it up on the internet), especially the mock test questions. For example, if the question says, “Who won the Bharat Ratna 2006?”, apart from knowing the answer, read more on the “Bharat Ratna” (find a website with detailed information on the Bharat Ratna), when it was instituted, by whom, who were the first awardees, in which fields is it given, who are the foreigners to have received it, when was it discontinued, etc.
Once you have done all of the above, you should have covered sufficient ground. You will know what is relevant and what is not. And you want to look for more material to work on.
Finally, keep your motivation high. Getting into the law college must be an obsession. Keep pictures in your room for inspiration. Talk to people who are already there. My seniors were my best inspiration and guide. Do group study. And remember that if you work hard NO ONE can stop you from getting in.
It is important to be diligent and complete what you have set out to do. You don’t need to make unreasonable or excessive sacrifices regarding. You need not forgo chatting, facebook, phone calls, movies, etc.- just monitor them a bit. Do everything in a planned manner. Don’t just randomly sit online and waste the whole day. Once your exam is over you will get plenty of time to do that too.
So that is roughly what I did for CLAT. At the same time my JEE classes used to be on. I was able to fairly juggle between the two. Today, at the end of the day, I have finally decided to join IIT Delhi and not NLS, Bangalore for my own personal career reasons. Although it was one of the toughest things to refuse NLS, I am confident I won’t regret this decision.
thnx fo sharing d info wid us. . ..!! its lyk i havent joined ny coaching fo clat. ..n m searching fo d study material .. n ur references hv helped meh . .thnk u . n ol d best fo ur future
ReplyDeletethanks a lot...evn though i hav joind lst for coaching..i still wanted to knw abt any uni guide wich could help me cover everytin under one roof....
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