CLAT 2018 Exam Analysis

Total Questions: 200

Total Duration: 120 minutes

Marking: +1 for Correct answer and -0.25 for Incorrect answer

Elementary Mathematics

Total questions: 20

This year this section would have surprised aspirants with the increased level of difficulty. Questions from topics such as Percentage, Profit & Loss, Ratio & Proportion, Averages, Time & Work and Time Speed & Distance were relatively easier and less time consuming. These questions should have been targeted in this section. Generally, aspirants do not expect questions based on geometry, yet there was one question was asked from the topic Quadrilaterals, although it was quite easy. Whereas questions from seemingly simpler topics such as BODMAS, Fractions and Simplification were quite tough and time consuming. Ideally, an aspirant should have avoided these questions. Continuing the trend of difficulty, questions from topics like Simple Interest & Compound Interest, Probability and Mensuration were also found to be difficult in nature.

Overall, aspirants would have faced difficulty in this section. Hence it can be categorised as Moderate to Difficult level. Ideal attempts would be around 12+. A good score can be considered to be around 8+. Ideal time to be allocated could be around 12+ minutes.

English and Comprehension

Total Questions: 40

This section was dominated by Vocabulary and its application based questions. Varieties of questions included 6 questions on Cloze Test, 8-9 questions Synonyms & Antonyms, 6 questions on Idioms, and 2 questions on multiple words based fill in the blanks which tested students on contextual usage of vocabulary and phrasal verbs. Multiple word based blanks can be considered as tough both because of novelty and word quality.

There were two Passages having 10 and 2 questions respectively. The first passage which was around 800+ words in length, was on “Internet of Things” having 10 questions. 2 questions were inference based out of which the one on Title of passage can be considered as relatively tough. Remaining 8 questions were direct. The second passage, which was around 200 words, was on philosophy and structure of universe. This passage was difficult to crack as far as the language of passage was concerned. However, the questions were not that difficult.

There were 3 grammar based questions asked in the format of Error Detection in which the student was expected to identify the incorrect sentence(s) out of the 4 given sentences. These questions can be considered as easy to moderate in difficulty level.

Critical Reasoning made re-entry after a long gap of 4 to 5 years. This would have surely surprised many students. Even the questions on passage summary were unexpected. 2 questions on each of these two made the section look relatively tougher this year.

Overall, while evaluating this section independently, we can consider this section to be easy, whereas while comparing it with previous 2-3 years, we can consider it to be moderate and hence, we can say it was easy to moderate. Ideal time to be allocated for this section should be around 25 minutes. Good attempts can be around 34+. With accuracy rate of 85%+, we can estimate the good score to be 28+.

Logical Reasoning

Total Questions: 40

This section lived up to its tradition of focusing more on Analytical Reasoning. There were two sets in all, having 6 and 4 questions respectively. Set of gift return having 6 questions was easy, whereas the set on Cars was tough and avoidable. Remaining 30 questions were independent and that may have given a feeling of a lengthy section.

Among other Analytical reasoning based questions, topics like Direction sense, Blood relation, Coding, Series, Odd one out etc were covered evenly. Most of these questions were easy and doable in less than a minute.

Analogy, Syllogism, Statement Assumption, Statement Conclusion, Statement & course of action and Critical reasoning completed rest of the sections. Questions were evenly distributed among these topics. Except for questions on Critical reasoning, most of the questions can be considered as easy. In fact, questions on critical reasoning were more like Decision Making questions and hence qualified under newer variety. Though not tough but novelty generally discourages attempts and hence, the number of attempts would have surely reduced overall.

A relative analysis of this section with that of last year can make this section look Moderate. Ideal time for this section can be 30 minutes. Good attempts can cross 30+ whereas good score can be around 26+.

General Knowledge and Current Affairs

Total Questions: 50

GK section, unlike last year, was a mixture of Current Affairs and Static part, with more weightage given to the latter. There were about 30 questions from the Static GK spread across categories like Books & Authors (6-7 questions), Polity (5-6 questions), Important Organizations (4 questions), History, Geography and Important Days & Dates (3 questions each). This part of GK section was fairly tough.

In Current Affairs part, few questions were on the expected lines and were easy (e.g. first Gold Medal for India in Commonwealth Games, Jnanpith Award 2017, full form of NITI Aayog, Best Film at Oscars etc.). However, staying true to the trend in past couple of years, the level of difficulty of the Current Affairs questions was quite high. The striking feature this year was that some of the Current Affairs questions were more than two sentences long, tricky and, therefore, a casual reading would have got the answers wrong (e.g. first female Defence Minister of India, Deputy Director-General of WHO, International Labour Day is commemorated on which occasion etc.). Another trend observable since last two years is increased focus on Science & Technology-related Current Affairs news.

In GK Section, 32+ questions attempted with 25+ correct answers should be a good score. Ideal time to be allocated would be around 10 to 12 minutes.

Legal Aptitude

Total Questions: 50

This section would have been the most reassuring section for this year’s test takers. Legal aptitude section was a mixed bag of questions. More than half of the questions were from Principle-facts. There were 5 questions from Principle-Facts which were quite lengthy and tricky to attempt. These questions would have demanded a lot of patience to read and understand the questions in the limited amount of time.

Most of the other half of the questions were from Legal Knowledge from areas like contract, constitution, legal updates and legal maxims. There were four questions of Statement-Conclusion and one question of Assertion Reasoning.

CLAT 2018 witnessed the debut of Statement-Conclusion type questions which were till now featuring only in AILET. Most of the principle based questions were from standard areas viz. torts, contract, crime, etc. Overall the section can be considered Easy but lengthy. A student with average skills would have attempted 41+ questions in 35+ minutes. Good score in this section could be 34+

SECTION	NO OF QUESTION	SUGGESTED TIME (IN Min)	DIFFICULTY LEVEL	GOOD ATTEMPTS	GOOD SCORE
Elementary Mathematics	20	12 Minutes	Moderate to Tough	12+	8+
Legal Aptitude	50	35 Minutes	Easy to Moderate	40+	34+
Logical Reasoning	40	30 Minutes	Moderate	30+	26+
English & Comprehension	40	25 Minutes	Easy to moderate	34+	28+
General Knowledge & Current Affairs	50	12 Minutes	Moderate	32+	25+
Total	200	120 Minutes	Easy to Moderate	148+	121+