Syllabus — What Each Section Really Tests
CLAT publishes five subjects, but the real syllabus is a skill, not a body of knowledge: read an unfamiliar passage and reason from it. Here is what each section actually asks of you and how to prepare it — the tabs below go section by section.
English Language
English Language
~24 questions (~20%). Reading-comprehension passages in a literary register — reflective essays and fiction, not news reports.
- Inference is the single largest skill (~40% of the section); vocabulary-in-context is ~24% and draws on genuinely hard literary words.
- Prepare by reading fiction and essays, not editorials — the register CLAT tests is literary, not argumentative-news.
- Practise defining hard words from context alone; keep a running list of unfamiliar literary vocabulary.
Current Affairs, including General Knowledge
Current Affairs, including General Knowledge
~28 questions (~23%). News-and-editorial passages, but with a static-GK memorisation load (~38% of the section) the passage only triggers.
- Weight International Relations / diplomacy (BRICS, SCO, G20, bilateral ties) first, then polity, science-and-space, economy, sports.
- Read one good daily editorial source over ~12–18 months and keep a static-GK hit-list (institutions, treaties, 'firsts', geography).
- You still have to read a passage under time — don't treat this as a pure GK quiz.
Legal Reasoning
Legal Reasoning
~32 questions (~27%) — the largest section. It is NOT a law-knowledge test: ~82% of questions hand you a legal principle in the passage and ask you to apply it to a fact scenario; only ~18% ask you to identify the principle.
- Do NOT memorise statutes. Practise applying a stated rule to new facts, cleanly and literally.
- Contract, Criminal and Constitutional law dominate the section (together well over half of it); Family law is a smaller recurring slice.
- Recent papers have drifted toward constitutional / polity current-affairs themes — follow major constitutional developments, but as reading practice, not doctrine to memorise.
Logical Reasoning
Logical Reasoning
~24 questions (~20%). Short arguments and puzzles you reason from — no outside knowledge needed.
- ~65% is critical reasoning (draw a conclusion, find the assumption, strengthen / weaken); ~35% is analytical-arrangement puzzles.
- Train critical reasoning as your core — but don't neglect classic puzzles (seating, coding, scheduling): they have returned strongly.
- Puzzles are also the most-withdrawn question type — build the reflex to flag a broken set and move on.
Quantitative Techniques
Quantitative Techniques
~12 questions (~10%) — the smallest section, but the hardest per question. It is 100% Data Interpretation.
- No geometry or algebra since 2020 — every question reads a data set (table/figure/passage) and computes.
- ~64% is percentages, then ratio/proportion and arithmetic — drill fast, accurate percentage and ratio work on multi-step chains.
- Because it's the smallest section, cap your time here — accuracy on a few, not a long grind.