'Law' has emerged as one of the best career options after Class XII, considering the many opportunities that it offers. The emergence of the National Law Schools, their world-class education and their national and international campus placements each year bears testimony to this fact. CLAT 2022 is just knocking on the door and aspirants are busy revising the concepts they have learnt in the last few months. Let us look at the errors to avoid during the exam.
Manage the five sections well
The sectional time division will play a key role in your success. So, know well where to start from and where to end the paper. You are free to decide on the sectional time division as there are no sectional time restrictions. Start with your strongest area and then somewhere in between move to the weaker one. Choose the moderate area towards the end of the paper. Every section will have some easy and doable questions, so, do not leave an entire section as you may miss out on the doable questions there. Scan the sections well to select the doable questions even if that particular section is your weakest.
Manage your time well
This paper-based exam demands a good mix of speed and accuracy. Answering 150 questions in 120 minutes with a negative marking of 0.25 marks for every wrong answer becomes very challenging. This test is definitely about informed decision-making rather than wild guess works. While taking this exam make sure that you have some exit time in mind, which means, after how much time you should exit the question once you understand that the question is beyond your reach. Lingering on and wasting time on questions which are very tough for you should be a bad idea. Be brave enough to leave a question and move on to the question you can solve.
Manage your expectations
All the aspirants are in the same boat so one need not be very happy if the paper is easy and one need not be very sad if the paper is tough. Cut-offs are higher if the paper is tough and vice versa. So, another golden rule is, there should be no preconceived notions. Don't think of the number of attempts before actually looking at the paper. A number of attempts would go down for the whole group if the paper is tough, thereby, reducing the cut-offs. This can ease out the exam pressure and would result in sensible attempts rather than wild guesses. The Legal and English sections are generally lengthy, so, maintain a good speed and mark answers based on the hints given in the passage and avoid wild guesses. GK section can be less time-consuming if you know the answers.
The silver lining
The Quantitative techniques section can prove to be a blessing in disguise as with the basic knowledge of Mathematics, one can easily attempt all the 13-17 questions and get all of them right. This can definitely increase the overall scores and help a candidate clear the overall cut-offs even if one fears Maths as an area. So, just revise the basic chapters like speed, time and distance, profit and loss, SICI, percentages, averages, piechart, histogram and so on, as there may be some data interpretation questions in this section. Avoid silly mistakes and recheck the calculations you do. Follow this mantra to score well in the Quant and Reasoning sections.
Work smart
This may sound strange but the exam is also about leaving questions. Going through all the questions is of utmost importance and doing that will definitely mean leaving questions you are not sure of. Attempt questions you are sure of and leave questions that you are unsure of. Eliminate options smartly and choose the best among the given options. Have that eye for detail as to identify easy, moderate and difficult questions. The questions and the answers are right in front of you. Be smart!
Avoid rigidity and be flexible
Sometimes you may be halfway through a passage or a reasoning question yet won't be able to understand the head or tail of it. That is when you need to listen to your mind and not your heart. The heart would ask you to spend some more time on it and the brain would ask you to leave the sinking ship. So, be flexible enough to move on and look at the undone questions rather than wasting precious time and gathering negative marks.
Keep your focus intact, be calm and give your best
(Amit Poddar is the Senior Regional Head with Triumphant Institute of Management Education, also known as TIME)
