CLAT  2013 (Actual Paper Analysis)

The paper was along the expected lines as mentioned in the CLAT notification. There were no unconventional questions like last year making the level of the examination relatively easy. The exam comprised five sections with a total of 200 questions carrying one mark each. There was a negative marking of 0.25 for each incorrect attempt. The duration of the test was 2 hours. The section wise analysis of the paper is given below:

English
CLAT  was not too different from the previous year’s iteration. There was one Reading Comprehension passage, followed by 10 questions -2 fact based, 1 inference based, 4 synonym based, 2 idiom based and 1 tone based. The passage dealt with the idea of how across ages, education passed on as a puppet from one ruling class to other, who maneuvered education to maintain their governance. The questions that followed the passage were relatively easy as they could easily be answered by referring to the body of the passage. One question based on tone was contentious as none of the given options could have been chosen as the correct answer. Like last year, there were 5 questions each on Idioms, Para-Jumbles and Foreign Language Phrases. In addition, there were 10 Fill in the Blank questions -4 based on tenses, 2 on conditionals, 1 on vocabulary, 1 on preposition, 1 on adjective and 1 on pronoun. Overall, the level of difficulty of this section was easy to moderate. An attempt of around 32-35 could be called a good attempt.

General Knowledge
The General Knowledge section of CLAT 2013 Paper had 50 questions in all. It mainly focused on static GK with a total of 31 questions from static GK (History -6, Geography- 4, Indian Polity-4, Economy-3, Science & Tech -6 and Miscellaneous -8). Overall, the difficulty level of these questions   was moderate but some questions from history were tough.

There were 19 questions from current affairs which can be further classified as Personality -7, Places -3, Sports -4 and Miscellaneous -5. It seems that the test gave much emphasis on London Olympics as there were many direct questions based on it. The difficulty level of questions on current affairs was easy.
Most of the questions in this section were on the lines of the CLAT brochure and did not contain any surprises.

Elementary Mathematics
This section of the paper had 20 questions. Most of the questions were straightforward and required application of the basic concepts to arrive at the correct answer. Arithmetic and Geometry dominated this section with 6 questions each. There were 3 questions each from Number System and Modern Mathematics and 2 questions from Algebra. Most of the questions were from topics like percentages, profit, loss and discount, ratio & proportion, time, speed and distance, time and work, area, circles etc. One question each was asked from Set Theory, Statistics and Probability. An attempt of 12 – 13 questions is an ideal one. There were 3 questions – one based on HCF, one on single equivalent discount and one on the cost price of the cycle – which didn’t have the correct answer present in the given options. In another question based on students and languages, the correct answer couldn’t be determined as it wasn’t mentioned that each of the students can read at least one of the two given languages.

Logical Reasoning
This section should not have posed any problems for the aspirants as the level of difficulty was moderate. Breaking away from tradition, mathematical concepts played an important role. The major portion of the section was dominated by Analytical Reasoning. There were 15 questions on Arrangements, and 5 questions each on Series and Blood Relationships. There were 15 questions from Verbal Reasoning with 5 questions each on Syllogisms, Course of Action, and Analogy. The questions on analogy were slightly difficult with 3 out of 5 having very close options. Of the 5 questions on course of action, 2 questions did not have options that were courses of action at all. The 5 questions on Syllogisms were easy except one which was a little vague.

Legal Reasoning
Taking a look at the CLAT 2013 paper, it can be seen that much to the relief of the students, there were no legal knowledge questions per se. However, most of the Legal Reasoning questions required the application of Legal knowledge. There were many questions which had insufficient principles and facts leading to a lot of assumptions and required application of knowledge in order to arrive at the closest option.

The Legal Aptitude part was of an Easy-Moderate difficulty level. The questions were not lengthy but had convoluted language requiring students to give it a careful read. The questions also seemed to have a few typographical errors in the answer options making it difficult for the students to arrive at the correct option.

The questions were majorly from the areas of Contracts covering offer-acceptance, consideration, postal rule, promissory estoppel; Criminal Law covering topics of Kidnapping, Right to Private Defence, Sedition, etc. International law was conspicuous by absence, while knowledge of IPR was tested on copyright, trademarks and licenses. Due importance was given to General Principles of Law with questions being asked on understanding of Legal Maxims. A few questions on the principles of Defamation, Negligence, Volenti Non Fit Injuria and Nuisance were also asked from the Law of Torts. Constitution included one question on Fundamental Rights and one on State. One question was on family law.

Most of the questions were framed on the lines of the questions provided in FLAME’s mock tests and regular exercises. FLAME  students would not have faced any problems due to their familiarity with similar type of questions in the preparatory material and the mocks, enabling them to achieve a respectable score in the exam.

(60)