CLAT Exam Pattern 2020 (Change), Marking Scheme, Syllabus, Question Papers

The Consortium of National Law Universities (NLUs) has made some changes in the CLAT 2020 exam pattern. According to the press release released on 22 November 2019, the number of questions will be reduced. Previously the exam pattern consisted of 200 questions to be attempted within 120 minutes.

In 2020, the CLAT question paper will have 150 questions based on the English language, Current affairs including general knowledge, Legal Reasoning, Logical Reasoning, and Quantitative Techniques that needs to be attempted in 120 minutes. More focus is given on the comprehension based questions. But the duration of the examination, the test mode, and the descriptive questions will remain unchanged. NUSRL, Ranchi will conduct CLAT 2020.

Read Important Topics of CLAT Syllabus 2020 - Check Here

CLAT 2020 Practice Papers - Download

CLAT 2020 Exam Pattern Change

• As per the new pattern, the total number of questions has been reduced from 200 to 150. In a statement where Prof. Faizan Mustafa, Vice-Chancellor, NALSAR said that "asking students to answer 200 questions in 120 minutes is not right as it puts students under a lot of mental stress".


• Comprehension based questions will be asked from Quantitative Techniques, Current Affairs, English, Deductive Reasoning & Logical Reasoning.

CLAT Exam Pattern and Syllabus 2020

Under Graduate Course

The UG program's Syllabus covers questions from General Knowledge & Current Affairs, Legal Aptitude, English, Maths, Logical Reasoning. Section GK and Legal Aptitude will carry the highest weighting in the entrance examination of the law. The weighting details for each course are provided below:

General Knowledge & Current Affairs Syllabus

The syllabus for this section is usually very vast and varied. This section will include both general knowledge and current affairs questions. The GK questions will test candidates ' static knowledge on some of the prominent national and international aspects.

Important topics under this section:

1. Outline of Indian Economy
2. National Income of India
3. Indian Tax Structure
4. Major Industries in India
5. Banking & Finance

Legal Aptitude Exam Syllabus

This section will test the ability and interest of candidates to understand and resolve legal issues. To solve various legal proposals, they will have to apply their research aptitude and reasoning.

Important topics under this section:

1. Legal fundamentals and terms
2. Legal Maxims and Important Landmarks
3. Supreme Court Judgments

Syllabus for English including Comprehension

This section is intended to test candidates ' grammatical knowledge. The questions will focus on correcting in grammatically incorrect phrases, jumbled phrases, idioms, and phrases, etc. It will also include about 300 – 400 words of the passage. Candidates must answer questions based on the passage's main theme as well as some of the passage's keywords.

Important topics to be covered under this section:

1. Comprehension Passages
2. Subject-Verb Agreement
3. Noun
4. Pronoun
5. Adjective and Determinants
6. Adverb
7. Active Passive Voice

Logical Reasoning Syllabus

The Logical Reasoning section is intended to check the ability of a candidate to analyze patterns and arguments. This would include syllogism questions, logical sequences, analogies, etc. Understand and analyze the different conditions set out in the questions and draw the right conclusions.

Key topics under this section:

1. Logical Puzzles
2. Statement Conclusions Derivation of Conclusions
3. Cause & Effect Reasoning
4. Statements Assumptions and Statement Arguments

Mathematics (Numerical Ability) Syllabus

Candidates will be asked in this section to answer questions based on the syllabus of class 10 of mathematics (elementary mathematics). With numbers and calculations, it will test the accuracy of the candidate.

Important topics in this section are:

1. Numbers
2. HCF and LCM
3. Fractions
4. Logarithms
5. Percentage
6. Time &Distance
7. Ratio & Proportion

CLAT Exam Pattern & Marking Scheme

Exam patterns for the CLAT LLM program will cover topics from constitutional law, law, contract, torts, criminal law, international law, IPR, etc. LLM Paper will have as many as 150 questions of an objective type. Below is the sectional distribution of questions:

CLAT Syllabus for Post Graduate Course

In the question paper, both constitutional law and jurisprudence will have an equal weight of 50 marks each. The rest of the questions, however, will come from various topics such as criminal law, international law, etc. Please refer to the details of constitutional law and jurisprudence below:

Constitutional law is made up of different rules, practices, and doctrines governing the functioning of a modern state and other political communities. Candidates will be asked questions based on the concepts they have been studying in their degree.

Jurisprudence can be called the "law philosophy" in a broad sense. It is divided into three branches – analytical, sociological and theoretical. The questions in this section will be determined based on the syllabus prescribed in the course of graduation.

Tort Law is a recent development of common law in India based on the codification of statutes, including damage statutes. Some of the crucial tortious obligations such as Negligence, Nuisance and Defamation should be thoroughly reviewed.

Contract can be described as a piece of legal document that is a mutual agreement between two or more parties that can be enforced by law. A very important part of this subject is important decisions made by the Supreme Court and the High Court in relation to modern business activities.

Criminal law, also known as the Penal Law, aims to regulate the Social Code of Conduct and prohibit any antisocial activity that poses a threat to citizens ' security, property, health, and moral welfare. Significant topics should be given special attention to the principles of criminal liability and men's rea ("guilty mind" in criminal law).

CLAT Best Books for 2020

CLAT is one of the most challenging competitive exams in India that requires a lot of practice to clear the exam. Candidates have to go through all the detailed topics for the complete preparation of the exam. When preparing for a national-level law entrance examination like CLAT, one needs a good strategy and choosing the right books is the most important part of that strategy. While there are a lot of CLAT books 2020 available in the market but not all are equal. We bring the most helpful CLAT 2020 books to help candidates in their preparation.

CLAT 2020 Exam Pattern FAQs