An all India based law entrance examination, Common Law Entrance Test (CLAT) is undeniably one of the most difficult examinations to crack for the students. While thorough preparation of the subjects can help the student, most students appearing for the first time often find it hard to plan and prepare for the examination. Conducted to grant admission to students in LLB and LLM programs offered by 21 NLUs, 53 private colleges and other participating colleges, this year CLAT will be conducted offline on Sunday, 21st June, 2020 from 3:00PM to 5:00PM.

Experts say, whatever a coaching centre can give you, it will never be the same as what self study can provide you. With the number of days at hand and the amount of time at home, especially due to coronavirus lockdown, students can make the best use of this to target the best Law colleges in India. In this article, we will highlight the practical tips required to clear CLAT exam without joining training centre.

• Begin Early: Sooner the Better! This saying is apt when preparing for any competitive exam. Knowing what you are going to appear for, planning for it in advance and having the right study material at the right time can really help the applicant.
• Check the Syllabus: Stay aware of the syllabus. Each year some new topic is either included or something might be excluded; it is essential to know what to study before you start your exam preparation.
• Know the Exam Pattern: Being an offline examination with a total duration of 120 minutes, CLAT examination is a tricky one. With four sections within the exam paper, each has different number of questions and marks division. Each question is for one mark and 0.25 marks are cut for the incorrect answer.
• Understand Your Weakness and Strength: Knowing what you are best at can help you go the extra mile. With mastered skills, you can aim the questions from those sections from first. This is going to benefit you in managing your time as well.
• Solve as Many Practise Papers that You can: Practise makes a man perfect and even after these years, this saying never fails to stand true. Polishing your skills by solving previous years’ question papers, mock papers and practice papers will certainly speed your preparation and your ability to solve more number questions of questions when appearing for the CLAT exam.
• Prepare Key Notes: Keep a tab of all the important topics from each section. This information will come handy on the last day of revision, especially a day before the exam when you have limited time and have to revise all the important topics.

In addition to the above pointers, you can refer to books like Butterworths LexisNexis or English is Easy by Chetnanand Singh or Word Power Made Easy by Norman Lewis for English preparation. You also need to polish your General Knowledge to excel in this. Apart from this, Universal Guide to LLB and CLAT UG 2020 - Preparation Guide are really good books with huge set of questions from various categories to learn and enhance your skills from. While books have the potential to make or break one’s preparation, it is only dedication with which one can achieve success in any field.