CLAT UG 2022 Paper Analysis: Section Wise Analysis

CLAT UG 2022 paper analysis: The Consortium of National Law Universities conducted the Common Law Admission Test (CLAT) 2022 for BA LLB UG and LLM (PG) admissions on June 19th 2022, Sunday between 02:00-04:00 PM. As per the press release dated 19.04.2022, 92% of candidates registered for CLAT UG and 87% of candidates registered for CLAT PG appeared for the exam at 131 test centres across 84 locations in 25 states in the country. And now that the examination is over, you must be wondering about the cutoff, difficulty level and what to do next. Fret not; we got your back!

FYI, the master question papers and provisional answer keys – for both UG & PG CLAT 2022 – shall be uploaded on the Consortium Website on the forenoon of 20th June 2022. (Hit the Website here.)

First Impression

Prima Facie, the CLAT UG 2022 paper analysis reveals the paper to be of moderate difficulty, at par with the paper of 2021. Though almost all the questions were within the expected lines owing to a well-rounded syllabus available on the Consortium Website (here), the passage-based questions were lengthy. Time should have been “of the essence” for CLAT UG 2022 paper. Aspirants with good reading speed and time-management skills will reap the benefits. Aspirants who rely on newspapers or have the habit of reading them regularly will also be benefitted.

Section-wise analysis of CLAT UG 2022 paper

Sl	Section	Questions	Weightage(approx.)	Difficulty level
01	English Language	6 passages(30 questions)	20%	Moderate Easy & expected questions,Lengthy passages (approx. one page each)Focus on drawing Inferences based questions
02	Legal Reasoning	8 passages (40 questions),	25%	EasyExpected areas of law touched, i.e., focus on questions from the static legal category.
03	Logical Reasoning	6 short- passages (30 questions)	20%	EasyRelatively small passagesNo analytical reasoning questions.
04	Quantitative Techniques	3 caselets (15 questions)	10%	EasyCalculation-oriented questions which do not require a lot of rote learning were focussed upon.
05	Current Affairs, including General Knowledge	7 passages (35 questions)	25%	Moderate – to – DifficultMany aspirants may have found this section difficult because of non-traditional questions.Passages maintained the expected trends, however.Tricky options were included.

English Language Section: CLAT UG 2022 Paper

The English Language section of the CLAT UG 2022 paper tested your reading speed and interpretation ability instead of just testing your linguistic proficiency. Out of the 6 passages asked –

• 5 were non-fiction-based passages – The topics touched ranged from cryptocurrency, public speaking, modern animal rights movement, COVID 19, etc. Aspirants who focus on Newspaper reading will be at an advantage in this section
• 1 fiction-based comprehension – The topic was Goddess Gaia, and easy to comprehend.

The type of questions asked in the English language section of the CLAT UG 2022 Paper is –

1. The attitude of the author, comparing and contrasting the different arguments or viewpoints set out in the passages;
2. Context of the Passage, drawing inferences and conclusions based on the passage;
3. Summarizing the passage.

Current Affairs and General Knowledge Section: CLAT UG 2022 Paper

Though this section of the CLAT UG 2022 paper was along the expected lines as per the Consortium standards and previous years’ question paper analysis (here), the surprises came in the form of Tricky Options. Also, there was at least one (01) static GK question in each of the Passages. The topics for the short passages appearing in this section ranged as –

• Drone Rules 2021,
• SPACE and ISRO,
• SAGAR Vision,
• Russia-Ukraine War,
• AFSPA & Specials Powers Acts,
• CSR (Corporate Social Responsibility) and Covid-19, and
• Green Technology patents.

Speaking of unexpected questions, one question was to select the correct spelling of Ukraine President Volodymyr Zelenskyy. Even though all students knew the name of the President of Ukraine, expecting them to know the exact spelling, with similar options given, wasn’t exactly what Consortium usually aims for in the section.

However, in this section as well, aspirants who read the newspaper regularly would be benefitted given that at least 4 to 5 passages were sourced from the editorials of Newspapers like The Indian Express, Economic Times, Time of India and Sunday Guardian, amongst others.

Legal Reasoning Section: CLAT UG 2022 Paper

This section of the CLAT UG 2022 paper primarily focused on static legal areas for questioning like –

• Constitution (3 passages, maximum weightage): 
  • Fundamental Rights and Reasonable Restrictions
  • Levy of Taxes on Religious Denominations (Mentions the theme of secularism)
  • Law of Writs
• Contract Law: Void and Voidable Contracts, 
• Environmental Jurisprudence: Doctrines
• Public International Law: Theories of Relationship between International Law and Municipal Law
• Penal Law and Volenti Non-Fit Injuria
• Special Marriage Law and Personal Laws related to Bigamy

The idea of this section of the paper was not to test any prior knowledge of the law but to test your understanding and application of general principles or propositions to the given fact scenarios.

The questions asked following the passage required aspirants to

1. Identify and infer the rules and principles in the passage;
2. Apply such rules and principles to various fact situations; and
3. Understand how changes to the rules or principles may alter their application to various fact situations. 

Staying true to the same, straightforward passages were made available in the section. However, it could have been a time-consuming paper given the fact that there were a lot of principles to keep track of. Also, at least 2 of the passages required prior knowledge of technical terms, albeit easy, from Contract laws. 

Logical Reasoning Section: CLAT UG 2022 paper

As expected, in the logical reasoning section of the CLAT UG 2022 paper, none of the questions appeared from the Analytical reasoning section. All were from Critical Reasoning, asking to –

• Recognize an argument, its premises and conclusions;
• Read and identify the arguments set out in the passage, the central idea and context of the passage;
• Critically analyse patterns of reasoning, and assess how conclusions may depend on particular premises or evidence;
• Infer what follows from the passage and apply these inferences to new situations;
• Draw relationships and analogies, identify contradictions and equivalence, and assess the effectiveness of arguments.

The passages asked were yet again sourced from Newspapers. However, students who have had a practice of Previous Year Question Papers and traditional sources like Arihant’s Reasoning book, etc., would be benefitted. The topics ranged from Nuclear Energy to Online Education Amidst COVID 18.

Also, aspirants who keep a tab on legal news from prominent websites like LiveLaw, Bar&Bench and even the editorials dedicated to Supreme Court & High Court judgements would get the edge in this section. 

Quantitative Techniques Section: CLAT UG 2022 paper

The Quantitative Techniques section of the CLAT UG 2022 paper didn’t break the pattern this year as well. That said, the Quantitative aptitude section was not as easy as in 2021. All 3 factual matrices asked in this section were caselets, devoid of any diagrammatic representation. However, aspirants should have prepared a table to clearly understand the data and manipulate it accordingly.

The topics touched upon were basic mathematics (Xth standard) requiring calculations returning an integral value. This means even the calculations were not very difficult.

• Two caselets (10 questions) – Percentages,
• One caselet (5 Questions) – Ratio and Proportion.

Basic practice from Xth Standard NCERT “Mathematics” textbook should have sufficed for gaining conceptual clarity. However, this section requires a high level of precision and accuracy in a time-bound manner. Hence, intensive practice from Mock Tests, sectional tests and previous years’ question papers would give the edge. 

How much should your sectional score be?

SL	Section	Good Attempt	Time-taken (Ideally)
01	English Language	22-26 questions	30-35 minutes
02	Legal Reasoning	33-38 questions	30-35 minutes
03	Logical Reasoning	22-30 questions	25-30 minutes
04	Quantitative Techniques	15 (YES!) questions	15 minutes (Maximum)
05	Current Affairs, including General Knowledge	25-28 questions	25-30 minutes
Hence, an ideal aspirant would attempt approximately 120+ questions. The Cutoff might follow trends similar to 2021.	110 minutes + 5 minutes.

What to do next?

Do you recall Major H.P.S. Ahluwalia’s “The Summit Within” from Chapter 5 of “Honeydew,” the CBSE language textbook for Standard 8th? It describes three attributes that a person who wants to climb a mountain must possess: endurance, perseverance, and willpower. And now that you have already appeared for the CLAT examination, there is only so much you can do about it! However, despite the score or attempt – good or bad – you must not lose sight of the greater goal, entering into the legal profession. Your endurance should teach you to persist in the track and prepare for upcoming examinations like AILET, SLAT, IPM, etc. Your willpower should teach you to either not give up or continue hustling till you reach your goal. 

Sit back and chill for 1 or 2 days. Analyse your CLAT UG 2022 paper by asking yourself these questions –

• For questions left unsolved or unmarked – Was it a lack of time or knowledge?
• For incorrect responses – Was it a silly mistake or lack of knowledge?
• For correct answers – Is it possible to do this in a better and faster way?

Based on your answers, curate your strategy for the best possible results in the upcoming examinations. All the best!

For more help with your CLAT preparation, tune in to Oliveboard. For tips and tricks on preparing for other law entrances, check this. Ciao!