Why?

By : Anindita Mukherjee

Hello! It feels good to write for CLAT Gyan! The reason why I haven’t for so long (Mind you, it was a tough task; I belong to the class of people that generally likes blabbering.) is that I really haven’t any Gyan to give when it comes to CLAT. My CLAT preparation was, as per all that you’re being asked to do, grossly inadequate.

“Why this article, then?”

Well, because with high tension preparation for one test that does, to some degree, mould the path that one’s life takes comes an inevitable questioning of oneself and one’s abilities. I distinctly remember feeling like an absolute git when I just didn’t arrive at the same answers as were held to be correct, be it in logical reasoning or legal reasoning.

So, this little post; just to tell you that everyone ends up with some skewed logic for something at some point in time. It’s alright. If you think off track more often than not, it’s still alright! If you find that an explanation to a question doesn’t conform to what’s going on in your head, ASK. I know that sounds obvious on first reading, but often one finds that you read an explanation knowing that it’s probably right so you try to conform to that explanation. Unless you get what you’re thinking cleared (and you never know, sometimes you may be right and the explanation wrong) you’re not going to remember what the logical approach to some sort of problem is. Question the given answer, even if they say that it’s the right answer.

The same goes with English. A comprehension passage is necessarily subjective. If everyone understood the same thing from a sentence, literature would be so darned boring. So if you understand something from a passage while the ‘right’ answer is ‘different’: question!

It works with GK too… Don’t learn up facts, learn stories. It’s easier that way. When you come across some fact that you think is important, look it up. Then look up things that have a direct correlation to it. Then things that have a direct correlation to the new facts that you come across. Do it until you’re convinced that even if you forget the fact itself, various different connections will cause you to be able to pick out right answers during that crucial test. For example: The High Representative of the Union for Foreign Affairs and Security Policy is Baroness Catherine Ashton. This was a question in CLAT 2010. Some might have known in because they’d read this fact. I could answer it because, while reading about the European Union, I stumbled upon the Lisbon Treaty which linked me to the newly established post of the High Representative of the Union for Foreign Affairs and Security Policy which further told me that the post was occupied by Baroness Ashton. Did I remember all of this during the exam? No. All I did remember was that the person occupying the post had short hair. Would that matter in case of a man where it’s all too normal? No. So it must be a woman occupied position. There was only one option that named a woman. Tadaa! So, you see, random things count!

Please don’t be disheartened if you’re not arriving at the right answers! Question the answer, and stop only when you’re convinced. This might sound horribly didactic, but please don’t even dream of mugging up for CLAT. If you painstakingly understand everything that you’re doing, and it may seem like a horrible idea because it takes a lot of time, it IS going to help you. Especially, if you do Torts well for legal reasoning, you’ll notice that one subject in your first semester becomes that much easier! Look! Post CLAT perks, already!

With that heartening bit of news, I shall bid you adieu.