The CLAT 2024 Syllabus is released by the Consortium of National Law Universities on its official website consortiumofnlus.ac.in. Candidates preparing for CLAT 2024 must be well versed with the CLAT Exam Syllabus so that you have an incredible idea of which areas to focus on and master them. The CLAT Syllabus contains sections such as the English language, Current affairs including General Knowledge, Legal Reasoning, Logical Reasoning and Quantitative Techniques. The CLAT is a standardised exam that broadly measures reading and analytical skills. The test allows admissions officers of the top law schools in the country to compare students from different backgrounds with varying academic achievements and to assess their ability for future success.
| You Can Also Check | |
| OPUS CLAT Offline Full Test | Download Now |
| OPUS AILET Offline Full Test | Download Now |
| Try Out our Online CLAT Mocks | |
| CLAT Mock Test | |
Contents
Check Complete CLAT Syllabus 2024
Most National Law Universities require you to take the CLAT, barring National Law University Delhi, where they focus on their own entrance – the AILET. CLAT 2024 will also be accepted by other renowned Law Schools such as NIRMA, NMIMS, UPES, and ICFAI. The core CLAT syllabus will be outlined in this article and we will categorise each subject into its sub-categories- reading comprehension, logical reasoning, legal aptitude, quantitative techniques and General Knowledge and Current affairs. So, do read on if you’re interested =)
Let us break the CLAT Exam Syllabus to its very core so that you have access to the more detailed topic flowcharts, and you’re not just following a generalised CLAT Syllabus format available on random online sites.
The CLAT 2024 will be a 2 hour test with 150 multiple choice questions. Each question is worth 1 mark, with a negative marking of 0.25 marks for every wrong answer. The five areas that the test covers are English Language, Current Affairs including GK (general knowledge), Legal Reasoning, Logical reasoning, Quantitative techniques.
English Language and Reading Comprehension
(28 – 32 questions | 1 mark per question | Negative 0.25 for each wrong answer)
Reading comprehension questions test a wide range of abilities that are required to read and understand the kinds of prose commonly encountered in graduate school. Those include: understanding individual words, sentences, paragraphs as well as larger bodies of text; distinguishing between minor and major points; summarizing passages while drawing conclusions from information provided or inferring missing data based on incomplete information. Reading comprehension also tests an ability to comprehend how parts relate with one another within a passage or essay structure by asking about paragraph order/sequencing.
Questions will be based on one or more passages (300-400 words in length). Questions typically fall into four categories, each with its own set of question types:
- Understanding vocabulary and key terms
- Understanding rhetorical devices like organization, point of view, etc
- Deriving the main idea/theme from the passage
- Drawing a conclusion from the passage
The CLAT 2024 syllabus does not eliminate the scope of testing your vocabulary and grammar completely. Even though the CLAT 2024 syllabus will focus on reading, the following concepts can definitely help you score more in CLAT
- Process of Argumentation
- Trigger words and patterns that may indicate an incorrect answer choice is being used as a distractor
- Common errors in usage: misplaced modifiers, dangling participles, subject verb agreement, pronoun reference, misplaced/ dangling antecedents etc.
- Words that indicate the writer is focusing on a limited perspective or point of view
- Common ways that words are used to imply a word has an opposite meaning than what it actually means
- Analogies as they appear in sentence correction questions Rhetorical devices from argumentative essays and how they can be tested for in sentence correction questions
- More common logical fallacies students make while taking this exam
- Less commonly tested but equally important principles for sentence correction that appear on CLAT and other law school exams including parallelism, redundancy/ tautology, stylistic consistency etc.
- Usage of Adverb and adverbial modifiers etc.
Legal Awareness
(28 – 32 questions | 1 mark per question | negative 0.25 for each wrong answer)
The Legal Aptitude section will be a passaged based question set which will have extracts from Law Journals, Legal articles and Law oriented current affairs with some legal principles embedded within. Your job will be to analyse the core structure of the passage and identify the principle and apply it to some questions and scenarios. It will be immensely helpful to be familiar with the common legal concepts that are listed below.
The topics under this section are:
- Constitution – The Preamble, Fundamental Rights, Directive Principles of State Policy, Citizenship, Union Territories, Parliament (Articles)
- Law of Torts
- Law of Contracts
- Criminal Laws – IPC, Cr.P.C., Indian Evidence Act, Indian Penal Code
- Civil laws
- Environmental Law
- Company Laws (including Negotiable Instruments and Specific Relief Acts)
- Information Technology Law
- Competition law
Some example of topics that a legal passage may be based on are:
Vicarious Liability: the master is liable for the actions of the servant in the course of employment
Volenti Non Fit Injuria – volunteering for risk
Principle of res ipsa loquitur: the facts speak for themselves.
Adverse possession: a trespasser’s occupation of land constructs a title against all others, including the true owner.
Mens rea or guilty mind: liability only attaches if the person had intention to commit the act.
Law of average: “a man must take his chance” meaning one cannot complain about unexpected events.
Joint enterprise liability: people who aid or abet others in committing a crime are equally liable for the crime as if they had actually committed it themselves.
Corporate veil: a principle that the legal entity of a corporation (separate from its shareholders) will not be liable for criminal or civil offences committed by itself or employees / directors.
Apex court: the Supreme Court of India.
Transfer pricing: a method for determining prices when multinational corporations transfer goods / services between their different divisions.
Specific Relief Act: The Indian legislation that deals with remedies for breach of contract or specific performance.
etc.
(this is just a sample and not a super comprehensive list for CLAT 2024 – work with OPUS to get the full list)
Logical Reasoning (focussing on Critical Reasoning)
(30 questions | 1 mark per question | negative 0.25 for each wrong answer)
The Verbal Reasoning section tests your ability to comprehend what you read, analyze and draw conclusions from discourse, reason with incomplete data, understand multiple levels of meaning such as literal and figurative language. It also measures how well you can distinguish major points from minor ones or irrelevant details while understanding the author’s assumptions/perspectives about their topic(s).
The verbal reasoning section on CLAT is used to measure one’s logical reasoning skills in order to assess if they have an aptitude for higher education studies that require strong critical thinking abilities. This lesson covers testing strategies specifically designed around this portion of the CLAT including question types students are likely encounter (inference questions), answer choices commonly offered by colleges boards (logical fallacies) , how to approach the question and quickly narrow down answer options (process of elimination) , and pitfalls students should avoid when tackling these questions so as not to sacrifice accuracy for speed.
A Critical Reasoning (CR) argument is usually structured into facts and a conclusion. It’s important to be able to identify the parts of a CR argument. We’ve given you tips on identifying the conclusion in our post “Identifying the Conclusion”. Your job isn’t always questioning facts; it can involve challenging assumptions made by writers, which are gaps between their ideas or conclusions that might not be true under certain circumstances.
The five question types in the Critical Reasoning section of CLAT are:
- Assumption questions
- Conclusion-based questions
- Inference questions / Strengthen and Weaken Questions
- Logical Fallacy based questions
- Role in the Argument questions
The major areas that need to covered to ace this section are:
Identifying Conclusions, Assumptions, Strengtheners, Weakeners, Inferences, roles in boldface, structure etc.
The other verbal reasoning areas that will definitely help you boost your prep are:
Argument structure, Inferences, Relationships and Analogies, Contradictions and Equivalence, deductive reasoning, inferential reasoning, Syllogisms, Degree of truth and falsity, assertion and reason, courses of action, forcefulness of arguments, statement conclusions, statement conclusions, Logical Connectives etc.
Analytical reasoning questions may appear in CLAT 2024 as well. The CLAT 2024 syllabus may focus on some areas from analytical reasoning, though not very likely. However, these areas are crucial to build on your logical thinking skills and will definitely help you for all the other major law entrances apart from CLAT, such as AILET, SLAT, LSAT, MHCET etc.
The focus areas for analytical reasoning are:
Analogies, Series, Seating Arrangement, Syllogisms, calendar, clocks, sequence and matching, blood relation, directions, Logic Games etc.
Quantitative Aptitude / Techniques – Data Interpretation
(30 questions | 1 mark per question | negative 0.25 for each wrong answer)
The CLAT quantitative techniques section will focus on Data Visualisation and Interpretation questions. These are basically charts, graphs, Pie Charts, Grids, caselets etc. with quantitative data and a question that tests your ability to calculate and interpret the values (quantitative values) displayed in those charts.
This section can be very easy or very tough, depending on how much practice you have with graphs and charts. If you are not comfortable reading such data sets, you need to work on it as this will be tested extensively in your exam.
If you have a really good base in arithmetic, then this section will become a breeze. The topics that are tested can include
percentages, ratios, interest, averages, time and work, time speed distance, combinatorics and probability. Basic algebra and geometry concepts may be tested when you’re dealing with pie charts and other 2D data sets.
You, however, need to be careful when you are practicing the questions. Many people make mistakes in calculation while solving these questions due to lack of speed. You need to know what you are calculating and how you are going about it. Sometimes, with the intent of practicing for time, students end up making silly mistakes that can cost them a few good marks and eventually a few good ranks.
GK and Current Affairs | Passage based
(30 questions | 1 mark per question | negative 0.25 for each wrong answer)
The general knowledge section in CLAT will test how well you are aware of events that are shaping the world. The syllabus is usually prescribed to be 1 year prior to CLAT, BUT, the most frequent questions appear from 3 – 4 months prior to CLAT. Passage based current affairs will focus on Indian Affairs, International Affairs that can impact India, Indian Indexes, Economic indicators and other parameters that a reasonable adult should be aware of. Passages can feature current legal news, amendments and other judgements.
These passages are extracted from the major national dailies such as The Hindu, The Indian Express, Quint, The Mint, The Economic Times and other journals and magazines. If you’re consistent with reading the newspapers every day and focusing on the editorials, you’re good to go and ace the CLAT current affairs section.
The purpose of a passage based GK format is to test your ability to comprehend news and your understanding of these events. So a passage can focus on a specific area in the news and can ask questions in and around it. So it is crucial that you read around a specific event. OPUS supplements are generalised overview of everything that you will need to crack the CLAT.
Register for Free Demo:
