Book Review: GK Perfect 50

There is no dearth of books and study material for CLAT prep. As more and more books enter the market, the decision to opt for the appropriate books only becomes confusing. You cannot, and should not, be greedy in shopping for books. For one, your time is limited. And even if you do manage to read several books, revision becomes a problem. It is to help you in this quest that we, on CLATGyan, will be reviewing several CLAT-related books over the next few weeks.

For our first review, we’ve picked the “GK Perfect 50“, a set of six booklets published by CLATPossible. These six booklets have been divided into two subsets of three booklets each: 1. Win Streak (which covers the ‘high probability’ areas) and 2. Glide (which covers ‘medium to low’ priority areas). We have glanced through both these subsets.

Pros

• The books cover the current affairs relevant to CLAT. While many other GK books do the same, one unique element is that several static GK facts are also mentioned alongside. This helps solve several questions which, at the first look, seem like they are from a completely arbitrary and centuries old event. But they are actually relevant due to their relation to some current event. For example, the very first page of the ‘Win Streak – Volume 1’, aspects of Census 2021 are covered alongside a few facts such as: the first census was conducted in the year 1872 while Lord Mayo was the Viceroy.
• For several issues, there is a brief explanation. This is especially true for the recent legal developments such as the decriminalisation of consensual homosexuality between adults (Section 377 of the IPC). It helps an aspirant understand the issue without having to read too much.
• The book uses several pictures and graphs which makes it easier to retain the information. As the entire book is printed in colour, it also is easier to read.
• It allows easier revisions. Once you complete the booklets, you can flip through them several times to make sure that the facts get ingrained in you.
• The ‘Glide’ set of booklets have around 500 Multiple Choice Questions for you to practise. The questions seem to be of good quality and reflect the nature of questions asked in CLAT. The explanations to the answers give out additional information which looks helpful.

Cons

• While there is good amount of information, at some instances, there is simply a little too much. For instance, the issue of Section 377 was dealt with by the Supreme Court in Navtej Johar v. Union of India. But these booklets list five other case titles of this judgement which isn’t really required. So the aspirants will have to try and ignore such extra details which may not look relevant.
• As these booklets are in a bullet-point format, it is not possible to make notes from them. These books themselves are akin to notes. So any notes you make from the newspapers or internet will have to be added to these books and revised alongside.

On the whole, it appears that these booklets will help an aspirant a good amount of ground when it comes to GK. They may not guarantee a score of 50/50 because no book can, but it will surely improve the score. It is almost a must-have book and we endorse it. These booklets can be bought here.

(We will review more of such books over the next few weeks. If there is a specific book you want us to review, use the comments’ section below to tell us about it.)