CLAT 2017 Analysis & Expected Cutoffs

The CLAT 2017 paper has been amongst the most unpredictable ones in recent times. It was more difficult than CLAT 2016, but overall the level was moderate. Let us take a look at section-wise analysis.

Section- wise Analysis

English

Possibly the easiest section of the lot! While the passage was somewhat lengthy and cumbersome to read, the answers were straight forward. Reading Comprehensions (RCs) are often time killers, so students went relieved that there weren’t many. There were 10 Fill in the Blanks type questions, 10 on Sentence Correction, 10 on Spelling Corrections and another 5 on modifiers or parallelism to complete the 40. An average score of 32 must be attempted for those seeking to crack the top 3 NLUs.

Logical Reasoning

This was another of the easier sections. 28 out of 40 questions from Analytical Reasoning while 12 came from Verbal Logic. The former mainly comprised of Blood Relations, Arrangements and Directions. The verbal part had questions from Analogy, Syllogisms and Odd one out. There were especially good number of questions on blood relations. Some of the analytical type questions required good mathematical skills. A minimum score of 30 would be expected of the top NLUs.

Elementary Mathematics

This was definitely the hardest section of CLAT 2017. The majority of them were based around Arithmetic. This included questions on TSD (Time, Speed & Distance), Time & Work, Probability and Ratio-Proportion. Students must hope for a score of between 12 and 15.

General Knowledge

GK was the section that will make-or-break CLAT 2017 for many. Going by the trend of the last few years, this year the paper pattern stuck to a majority of Current Affairs questions rather than from Static GK. While this was predicted going by the trend, it was a huge shocker to see Static GK get relegated totally to the background without any intimation. Still the current affairs section had a lot of doable questions which can be answered with a thorough reading of newspapers and going through the recommended content. Students must aim for a score of between 30 and 35.

Legal Aptitude

This too was amongst the tougher sections. While the Legal Reasoning was relatively easy, students were in for a big surprise with 15 questions being posed on Legal Maxims. Contract and Criminal Law saw the largest share of reasoning based questions whereas there were fewer from Torts or Constitutional Law. Like the GK portion, there wasn’t much focus on Static Legal Knowledge. Peripheral topics such as Family Law, Intellectual Property or International Law did not see any questions either. A score of 38+ must be targeted by students.