Ten Things You Should Not Do During CLAT!

CLAT day is almost here, and all the preparation you have put in over the past month(s) or year or even couple of years is going to decide where you will spend your next five years. While pressures are mounting, it’s also important that you remember a couple of things that might actually decide how you perform at the exam. Here’s CG wishing you the very best of luck, with a ready reckoner of things to be weary of while taking the exam.

Ten things you can NOT afford to do during your CLAT:

1. Tearing the seal before time. The question paper and the OMR sheet will be kept on the desks even before you enter the hall. Don’t tear the seal and start reading the questions. You could ignore this advice if you don’t mind the invigilator yelling at you. But, it’s certainly not a good idea to start those two precious hours with pissing someone off and getting yelled at.

2. Reading out the questions loud. This, again, comes from experience. The chap sitting behind me kept murmuring everything that he was reading/thinking. I felt like turning around and punching his nose. Well, you could be doing the same and someone around you might have the guts that I didn’t. For your nose’s sake, refrain from this.

3. Trying to sneak into someone else’s OMR sheet. There’s a reason why the CLAT committee makes four different sets of questions. Mostly, the order of the questions is the same in all of them. But then, what’s different is the order of the options. What is option B for you might be Option D for your neighbour.

4. Asking someone for an answer. This is a competitive exam, remember? It’ll be too stupid to trust that someone will tell you the answer. That person might as well report you to the invigilator for disturbing him which will make you answer a lot of questions the invigilator will throw at you.

5. Poking a friend for an answer. If you’re caught, you’ll be picked up and dropped out of the window. If not, remember that there are four different sets? You are mostly going to bubble a wrong option even when that friend of yours intends to share the right one with you. Unless, of course, he takes the effort of reading out the option, in which case he could be picked up and dropped out of the window. Don’t try to be that extremely faithful friend either.

6. Tossing coins to determine the right answer. Think from the invigilator’s perspective. Do you think it’s a good scene to see coins flying all over? Also, your 1.3 Kilograms of brain could not think of an answer. You really want to pin your hopes to a tiny coin? Bad idea!

7. Feeling anything that’s extreme. There will be those who will grin when they know the answer to a question and frown when they don’t. Don’t be one of those. Your moods need not swing like a pendulum. Keep calm and move on to the next question, irrespective of knowing or not knowing the answer.

8. Sipping too much water. We had told you earlier here that you should carry a water bottle. If you don’t trust yourself with it, don’t. It’s really creepy to gulp down gallons of water like there’s no tomorrow. Your frequent visits to the bathroom aren’t going to be any gratifying either.

9. Admiring the beauty of the buildings/campus. That’s something the parents do while you are inside scratching your brains. I’m sure you have stalked all the NLUs enough. Now is not the time for you to look around and day dream about spending the next half-a-decade there. Keep it for later. I often recall my CLAT when I go to the left corner on the first floor of the library, the very same place I took my CLAT. It’s often easier to think back and re-live these times rather than creating your own world of imagination while you have hundreds of empty OMR bubbles staring at you.

10. Flirting around. I assure you that there are better times to throw some cheesy pick-up lines and start a conversation. There will be good looking people around. For once, hope that there aren’t any. If you’re unlucky to have some, attempt some self-restraint. You will find some such people in law schools too. These places aren’t as dry as we all often claim them to be.

And there ends the list. Go study, now.

Pip-pip!

Asad.