Common Law Admission Test, or more commonly known as CLAT is a national level entrance exam that students take to get admission in either Undergraduate (UG) or Postgraduate (PG) courses offered at National Law Universities (NLUs) and other colleges. The Executive Committee of the Consortium of NLUs has brought in a new exam pattern for CLAT.
Let us take a took at the changes made to the CLAT Exam
1. Cut-off Marks
According to the paper pattern of CLAT 2020, for the PG entrance test, the cut off marks have been introduced by the Consortium of NLUs. In this, the students that come from the General category will have have to score at least 40% in the objective test or else they will not be scored for the descriptive paper. For students belonging to the SC/ ST/ PwD, the minimum marks required are 35%.
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2. Exam Continues To Be In Offline Mode
The exam have not been changed to online/ virtual from offline based. The exam will comprise of questions from Current Affairs, Legal Reasoning, English Language, General Knowledge, Quantitative Techniques, and Logical Reasoning. Prof. Faizan Mustafa, President, Consortium of NLUs and Vice Chancellor (VC), NALSAR University of Law, Hyderabad, said “The idea is to get better students to National Law Universities who have competence in reading texts and demonstrate skills in inferential reasoning” in a meeting held in December.
3. Examination Material For Registered Candidates
The Consortium of NLUs decided that another change in the pattern of CLAT was needed. The Consortium has said that it will now provide the registered candidates with necessary Model Question Paper, Online Learning Material, Sample Questions, and other Guidelines. As of now, the first of the sample papers are already available online for all of the students who have registered themselves and have started with their (online) application process.
4. Number of Questions Reduced
CLAT exam’s duration is 2 hours i.e. 120 minutes, earlier a student would have to answer 200 questions, however, Prof. Faizan Mustafa said that answering 200 questions in a span of mere 120 minutes is stressful for a student. The Consortium hence made another change to the exam pattern of CLAT 2020, now the number of questions will be just 150.
Important Dates For CLAT 2020
| S. No. | Event | Date |
| 1. | Application Start | 1st January 2020 |
| 2. | Application End | 31st March 2020 |
| 3. | CLAT 2020 Test | 10th May 2020 |
| 4. | Provisional Answer Key | 11th May 2020 |
| 5. | Window To File Objection | 12th May to 15th May 2020 |
| 6. | Final Answer Key | 18th May 2020 |
| 7. | Results Declaration | 24th May 2020 |
The members of the Executive Committee of the Consortium of NLUs are Professor Faizan Mustafa (VC- NALSAR Hyderabad), Professor Balraj Chauhan (VC- Dharmashastra National Law University, Jabalpur), Professor Paramjit S. Jaswal (VC-RGNUL Punjab), Professor Kesava Rao Vurrakula (VC in charge NUSRL, Ranchi), Professor Sudhir Krishnaswamy (VC-NLSIU Bengaluru), Professor V. Vijayakumar (VC-NLIU Bhopal), and Professor Srikrishna Deva Rao (VC-NLUO, Cuttack).
What do you think of the new exam pattern for CLAT 2020, do tell us down in comments.
