Major changes have been introduced in the national level law entrance test, CLAT. The Common Law Admission Test (CLAT), for admission to undergraduate and postgraduate law programmes, will be held on May 10 and registrations have already begun. This year, the Executive Committee of the Consortium of National Law Universities have introduced a new exam pattern, in which changes have been made to the exam structure and composition of questions.
Number of Questions Reduced To 150
The number of questions has been reduced to 150 from 200. In the meeting, held earlier, it was proposed to reduce the number of questions from 200 to 120-150 keeping in mind the duration of the exam, which is 120 minutes. Professor Faizan Mustafa, the president of the Consortium, also Vice-Chancellor, NALSAR University of Law, Hyderabad, had said that asking students to answer 200 questions in 120 minutes is not right as it puts students under lot of mental stress.
Exam Continues To Be In Offline Mode
There has been no change in the mode of exam; it will continue to be held in offline mode. The exam will be a comprehension based test comprising questions from English language, Current affairs including general knowledge, Legal Reasoning, Logical Reasoning and Quantitative Techniques. "The idea is to get better students to National Law Universities who have competence in reading texts and demonstrate skills in inferential reasoning," Professor Mustafa had said in the meeting held in December.
Sample Paper For Candidates
It has also been decided that Consortium of NLUs website shall provide the necessary guidelines, sample questions, model question paper, answer keys and online learning examination materials to registered candidates. The first sample paper for CLAT is available online for all students with a registered account who have initiated the online application process.
Cut-off Marks For LLM Test
For the postgraduate law entrance test, cut off marks have been set by the Consortium. Only those candidates who secure more than 40% marks in the objective type test will be qualified for evaluation of descriptive answers. The cut off marks for candidates belonging to SC, ST and PwD category is 35%.
The Executive Committee of the Consortium of NLUs comprise Professor V. Vijayakumar (VC-NLIU Bhopal), Professor Paramjit S. Jaswal (VC-RGNUL Punjab), Professor Balraj Chauhan (VC- Dharmashastra National Law University, Jabalpur), Professor Sudhir Krishnaswamy (VC-NLSIU Bengaluru), Professor Faizan Mustafa (VC- NALSAR Hyderabad), Professor Srikrishna Deva Rao (VC-NLUO, Cuttack) and Professor Kesava Rao Vurrakula (VC in charge NUSRL, Ranchi).
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