Smooth sail, say CLAT examinees

The national law entrance test to get admission into the 14 national law schools in the country was conducted on Sunday.

As many as 916 students had registered for the Common Law Admission Test (CLAT) 2012 at the National Law School of India University (NLSIU) in the City, alone. An estimated 26,000 students wrote the exam across the country for a total of 1,702 seats.

Out of the 916, 49 had registered for the postgraduate entrance test and 867 for the undergraduate test. Among them, 37 were absent for the undergraduate entrance test and seven were absent for the PG test. In all, 872 appeared for the exam on Sunday, according to vice-chancellor of NLSIU, R Venkat. He told Deccan Herald that the exam was held peacefully.

Many of the candidates felt the paper was easy overall, compared to previous years. Revathi, a student of Kumaran’s School, told Deccan Herald that the students could attempt all sections of the paper well within the timeframe and the logic part of the paper was tougher than the other sections.

“The legal questions were easy, I felt,” said the student. Many students, who had opted for the science stream in their pre-university, said this was the only entrance exam for which they had appeared. “Every body writes exams for science courses. I had decided much earlier that I will take up only the law school entrance test,” said Lakshmi Kanth, who had taken PCMB in pre-university and is awaiting results.

Arjun R of Seshadripuram College felt law courses had lucrative career options. “Courses other than the science stream are gaining importance,” says the student. The students feel that parents need to be open to their children pursuing courses of their choice and that students must also be aware of the wide range of opportunities available.

A few of the students, however, felt there were deviations in the question paper pattern. They said they were unprepared for the “sudden changes” that might affect their prospects. The General Knowledge section had as much as 75 per cent of the questions on history, science and economics, a clear deviation from what the CLAT website had mentioned.

The website stated that the General Knowledge section, which is worth 50 marks, would consist only of questions on current affairs between March 2011 and March 2012. But as it turned out, the section had only 25 per cent of the questions on current affairs, the rest being on history, science and economics. In other words, questions worth about 38 marks in the General Knowledge section were not on current affairs.

The other deviation was in the legal section, in which there were problem-solving questions that required examinees to have prior legal knowledge. This was also against what the website had said. According to T Anita, Course Director, Paradygm Law, a coaching centre in Bangalore, the deviations had put a number of students in a fix.

NALSAR, Hyderabad, WBNUJS, Kolkata, NLUJA, Assam and RMLlNU, Lucknow are a few of the universities that come under CLAT. The results are expected on May 28.