Master CLAT 2027: Your Gateway to Top National Law Universities

The Common Law Admission Test (CLAT) is India's premier national-level entrance exam for admissions into undergraduate (UG) and postgraduate (PG) programmes across 24 National Law Universities (NLUs) and numerous affiliated private colleges.

​See CLAT UG 2027 Notice here

The Common Law Admission Test (CLAT) UG consists of 120 multiple-choice questions divided into five passage-based sections.

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Basic structure

Particular	Detail
Conducting body	Consortium of National Law Universities
Mode	Offline, pen and paper based with an OMR sheet
Question type	Multiple choice, all of them based on passages
Total questions	120
Total marks	120
Duration	2 hours
Marking	1 mark for a correct answer
Negative marking	0.25 marks deducted for a wrong answer
Medium	English only
Sectional time limit	None, you manage the two hours yourself
Usually held in	December, for admission in the following academic session

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Section wise question distribution

Marks per section depend on each subject's relative weightage in the exam. Current Affairs and Legal Reasoning together carry maximum weight, so these two sections decide your rank more than any other.

Section	Number of questions	Share of the paper
English Language	22 to 26	About 20 percent
Current Affairs including General Knowledge	28 to 32	About 25 percent
Legal Reasoning	28 to 32	About 25 percent
Logical Reasoning	22 to 26	About 20 percent
Quantitative Techniques	10 to 14	About 10 percent
Total	120	100 percent

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CLAT UG Syllabus

The Consortium does not publish a chapter list the way a board syllabus does. It publishes five skill areas and tells you what kind of passage each one uses and what you must be able to do with it. Everything below follows that structure, with the commonly asked topics added underneath.

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1. English Language

Weightage: 22 to 26 questions, about 20 percent of the paper

Item	Detail
Passage length	About 450 words
Passage source	Contemporary or historically significant fiction and non fiction writing
Difficulty level	Set so that a class 12 student can read it in 5 to 7 minutes
Prior knowledge needed	None

What you must be able to do

• Understand the main point of the passage along with the arguments and viewpoints in it
• Draw inferences and conclusions from the passage
• Summarise the passage
• Compare and contrast the different arguments or viewpoints given
• Work out the meaning of words and phrases from the way they are used

Topics that follow from this

Reading comprehension, inference and assumption based questions, tone and attitude of the author, main idea and title, vocabulary in context, synonyms and antonyms as used in the passage, and rearranging or completing ideas from the passage.

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2. Current Affairs including General Knowledge

Weightage: 28 to 32 questions, about 25 percent of the paper

Item	Detail
Passage length	Up to 450 words
Passage source	News reports, journalistic writing and other non fiction writing
Prior knowledge needed	Helpful. This is the one section where knowing the background genuinely pays
Law knowledge needed	No knowledge of law beyond what the passage itself gives you

What you must be able to do

• Answer on contemporary events of significance from India and the world
• Answer on arts and culture
• Answer on international affairs
• Answer on historical events that still matter today

Topics that follow from this

National and international news of the last 10 to 12 months, government schemes and policy decisions, important judgments and legal developments reported in the news, Constitution and polity in the news, awards and honours, sports events and winners, books and authors, summits and organisations, science and technology in the news, appointments, obituaries, and static general knowledge that connects to a current event.

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3. Legal Reasoning

Weightage: 28 to 32 questions, about 25 percent of the paper

Item	Detail
Passage length	Around 450 words
Passage source	Fact situations, legal matters, public policy questions and moral philosophical questions
Prior knowledge needed	None. The rule you need is given inside the passage
What helps	A general awareness of legal and moral issues in the news

What you must be able to do

• Identify and infer the rules and principles set out in the passage
• Apply those rules and principles to different fact situations
• Work out how the answer changes when the rule itself is changed

Topics that follow from this

Principle and fact questions, law of torts such as negligence, nuisance, trespass and vicarious liability, criminal law principles such as intention, consent and the general defences, contract principles such as offer, acceptance, consideration and breach, constitutional themes such as fundamental rights and equality, family and personal law situations, consumer and public policy questions, and questions on legal maxims where the meaning is supplied in the passage.

Remember that these are contexts for the passages, not a syllabus you have to memorise. You are never asked to recall a section number.

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4. Logical Reasoning

Weightage: 22 to 26 questions, about 20 percent of the paper

Item	Detail
Passage length	Short passages of about 450 words
Passage source	Argumentative and analytical writing
Prior knowledge needed	None

What you must be able to do

• Recognise an argument along with its premises and its conclusion
• Critically analyse patterns of reasoning and see how a conclusion depends on particular premises or evidence
• Judge what strengthens or weakens an argument
• Draw relationships and analogies, spot contradictions and equivalence
• Apply what follows from the passage to a new situation

Topics that follow from this

Assumptions and inferences, strengthening and weakening statements, conclusions and courses of action, flaws in reasoning, paradox resolution, analogies, and the occasional short arrangement or relationship set built on the passage.

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5. Quantitative Techniques

Weightage: 10 to 14 questions, about 10 percent of the paper

Item	Detail
Passage form	Short sets of facts, propositions, graphs, tables or other textual representations of numbers
Mathematics level	Class 10 standard
Prior knowledge needed	Basic school mathematics only

What you must be able to do

• Pull out, infer and work with the numerical information given in the passage
• Apply class 10 level mathematical operations on that information

Topics that follow from this

Ratio and proportion, percentages, profit and loss, averages, simple and compound interest, time and work, time speed and distance, basic algebra, mensuration, and reading data from tables, bar charts, pie charts and line graphs.

The Consortium itself suggests practising with a class 10 mathematics textbook, so this section rewards revision of school material rather than any new topic.

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How the five sections add up

Section	Questions	Share	Nature of the section
English Language	22 to 26	20 percent	Reading and inference
Current Affairs including General Knowledge	28 to 32	25 percent	Awareness plus reading
Legal Reasoning	28 to 32	25 percent	Rule application
Logical Reasoning	22 to 26	20 percent	Argument analysis
Quantitative Techniques	10 to 14	10 percent	Class 10 mathematics
Total	120	100 percent

Four of the five sections need no outside knowledge at all. Only Current Affairs asks you to bring something to the paper, and it happens to be the largest section, which is why daily newspaper reading is the single habit that separates a good CLAT score from an average one.

Educational Qualifications

Candidates who have passed in 10+2 or an equivalent examination with a minimum of:

1. Forty five percent (45%) of marks or its equivalent in grade or
2. Forty Percent (40%) of marks or equivalent in case of candidates belonging to SC/ST/PwD categories.

Candidates appearing for the qualifying examination in March/ April, 2027 are also eligible to apply. However, they shall be required to produce an evidence of their passing the qualifying examination at the time of admission, failing which they shall lose their right to be considered for admission.

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Language Proficiency

Indian nationals, Non-Resident Indians (NRIs), Overseas Citizens of India (OCI), Persons of Indian Origin (PIO), and foreign nationals are eligible

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Age Limit Requirements

There is no upper age limit for candidates appearing for UG Programme for the CLAT 2027.

No restriction on the number of attempts.

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Category	Application Fee (via OTR)
General, OBC, PwD, NRI, PIO, and OCI	₹4000/-
SC/ST/BPL	₹3500/-

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Payment Mode: Online via Debit Card, Credit Card, Net Banking, or UPI (Bank charges may apply)

Form Correction: the CLAT 2027 form correction window is provided by the Consortium of NLUs, opening typically right after registrations close

How to Prepare for CLAT

CLAT is not a knowledge exam, and that changes everything about how you prepare for it. There is one paper, 120 questions and 2 hours, and your All India Rank in that single sitting decides which National Law University you get. Four of the five sections need no outside knowledge at all, so the students who top CLAT are not the ones who have read the most. They are the ones who read fast, apply a rule carefully, and do not give marks back through wrong guesses. Your plan should be built around reading speed, accuracy and current affairs, and it should sit alongside your school work rather than replace it.

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Step 1: Start the newspaper habit today, because Current Affairs is the biggest section

Current Affairs including General Knowledge carries 28 to 32 questions, about 25 percent of the paper. It is the only section where knowing something in advance actually helps you.

• Read one good newspaper daily, around 30 to 40 minutes. The editorial page and the national and international pages matter more than the rest.
• Keep short monthly notes of one page per month instead of copying long summaries. You will revise these four or five times, so they must be short enough to actually revise.
• Your target window is the last 10 to 12 months before the exam. Anything older only matters if it is still in the news.
• Learn static general knowledge only where it connects to a current event. If a treaty is in the news, learn when it was signed and who signed it. Do not sit down to memorise general knowledge lists.

This is the one habit that pays compound interest, which is why it goes first.

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Step 2: Build reading speed, because every single question sits on a passage

You get 120 questions in 120 minutes, and every one of them is attached to a passage of about 450 words. The Consortium sets these passages at a level a class 12 student should finish in 5 to 7 minutes.

• Read non fiction every day. Editorials, long articles and opinion pieces train exactly the muscle CLAT tests.
• Practise reading a passage once, properly, without going back over lines. Rereading is what kills your clock in the exam hall.
• When you meet a new word, note how it was used in the sentence rather than learning a dictionary definition. English Language questions ask for meaning in context.
• Time yourself from the start. A passage plus its questions should settle into roughly 8 to 10 minutes as you improve.

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Step 3: Learn to apply a rule, not to memorise the law

Legal Reasoning is another 28 to 32 questions, about 25 percent. It needs no prior knowledge of law, and this is where most beginners go wrong in the opposite direction.

• The principle you need is printed inside the passage. Your job is to apply exactly that principle, even when it does not match your common sense or what you think the law really is.
• Build a fixed method: underline the rule, list the conditions it sets out, then check the given facts against each condition one at a time.
• Watch for questions that change the rule slightly and ask how the answer changes. These separate a good score from an average one.
• Do not buy bare acts or law textbooks. A general awareness of legal issues in the news is all the background you need, and Step 1 already gives you that.

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Step 4: Do not quietly lose Logical Reasoning and Quantitative Techniques

Together these are 32 to 40 questions, about 30 percent of the paper. Students underprepare both because they feel less important than Legal Reasoning.

• Logical Reasoning, 22 to 26 questions, tests arguments. Practise finding the conclusion, the premises and the unstated assumption, and identifying what would strengthen or weaken the argument.
• Quantitative Techniques, 10 to 14 questions, is class 10 mathematics only. Ratio and proportion, percentages, averages, interest, time and work, and reading data from tables and graphs.
• Quantitative Techniques is the cheapest section to fix, because the syllabus is finite and your school mathematics already covers it. The Consortium itself suggests practising from a class 10 textbook.
• If mathematics is genuinely your weak point, aim to be reliable on data interpretation and percentages rather than trying to cover everything. That alone secures most of the section.

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Step 5: Treat negative marking as a strategy, not a warning

Every wrong answer costs 0.25 marks, so four wrong answers cancel one correct answer completely.

• Attempting 100 questions with 80 correct gives you 75. Attempting all 120 with the same 80 correct gives you 70. More attempts made you worse.
• Set a simple rule for yourself: attempt a question only when you have confidently eliminated at least two options. Skip when you have not.
• Track accuracy percentage in every mock, not just the score. Accuracy is the number that tells you whether your attempt discipline is working.
• There are no sectional time limits, so decide your own order in advance. Most students start with their strongest section to build a cushion, and leave Current Affairs or Quantitative Techniques for the end.

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Step 6: Make mock tests the spine of your last phase

• Begin with sectional practice sets while you are still building each skill. Move to full length mocks once you have covered all five sections once.
• Take full mocks in one unbroken 2 hour block, ideally in the afternoon slot the exam is usually held in, so your concentration peaks at the right hour.
• Spend more time analysing a mock than attempting it. For every wrong answer write down the reason: misread the passage, guessed, ran out of time, or did not know the concept. The pattern in that list is your study plan for the next week.
• The paper is offline on an OMR sheet, so practise on paper often enough that marking and managing the sheet feels routine.

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Step 7: Fit it around your board year, not against it

Your board preparation and your CLAT preparation are not competing. Reading comprehension, English and class 10 mathematics all carry across, and a strong board score matters for several NLU admission processes too.

When	Weekdays	Weekends
Class 11 and early class 12	45 to 60 minutes. Newspaper plus one passage set	One sectional test plus revision of your monthly notes
Middle of class 12	1 to 1.5 hours. Newspaper plus two passage sets across different sections	One full length mock plus a full analysis session
Final 2 months before the exam	2 hours, weighted towards weak sections	Two full mocks with analysis, plus revision of all monthly notes

The exam is usually held in December, which is before your board exams, so the heavy CLAT phase and the heavy board phase actually fall in different months. Plan backwards from December and you will find they do not clash.

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On Lawpatra, you can run this entire plan in one place. Passage based practice sets for all five sections, full length mocks timed to the real 2 hour paper, current affairs already filtered down to what CLAT actually asks, and a section wise progress view that shows your accuracy alongside your score so you can see exactly where your 0.25 deductions are coming from.

Q: What is CLAT and who conducts it?
A: The Common Law Admission Test is a national level entrance exam conducted by the Consortium of National Law Universities. CLAT UG is the entry route to the five year integrated law programmes such as B.A. LL.B. (Hons.), BBA LL.B. (Hons.) and B.Com LL.B. (Hons.) at the participating National Law Universities. Several private law colleges and IIULER Goa also admit students on the basis of CLAT scores.

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Q: What is the overall selection process?
A: There is only one stage. Unlike judicial service examinations, CLAT has no prelims, no mains and no interview. You write a single paper, the Consortium publishes your score and All India Rank, and admission is decided entirely through the counselling rounds that follow.

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Q: What is the CLAT UG exam pattern?
A: A single offline paper on an OMR sheet, 120 multiple choice questions carrying 1 mark each, to be completed in 2 hours. Every question is based on a passage. The medium is English only, and there are no sectional time limits.

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Q: What is the negative marking rule?
A: 0.25 marks are deducted for every wrong answer. Four wrong answers cancel out one correct answer, so blind guessing costs you real marks. Unanswered questions carry no penalty.

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Q: How are the 120 questions distributed across sections?
A: Approximately as follows. English Language 22 to 26 questions, Current Affairs including General Knowledge 28 to 32, Legal Reasoning 28 to 32, Logical Reasoning 22 to 26, and Quantitative Techniques 10 to 14. Current Affairs and Legal Reasoning together make up about half the paper.

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Q: Do I need to have studied law before?
A: No. The Consortium tests aptitude, not prior knowledge. In Legal Reasoning the rule or principle you need is printed inside the passage itself, and you are expected to apply exactly that rule. The only section where background knowledge genuinely helps is Current Affairs including General Knowledge, which is why daily newspaper reading matters more than any law book.

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Q: What is the educational qualification required?
A: You must have passed, or be appearing in, Class 12 or an equivalent examination from a recognised board.

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Q: What is the minimum percentage required in Class 12?
A: 45 percent for General, OBC, EWS, NRI, PIO and OCI candidates, and 40 percent for SC and ST candidates. Note that this is an eligibility requirement only. Your Class 12 marks do not add to your CLAT score or affect your rank in any way.

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Q: Can I apply while I am still in Class 12?
A: Yes. Students appearing in the Class 12 examination in March or April of the following year can apply, provided they meet the minimum percentage requirement at the time of admission. A pending compartment or an undeclared result at the counselling stage can cost you the seat, so the qualifying result must be clear by then.

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Q: Does my stream matter?
A: No. Science, Commerce and Arts students are all equally eligible, and none of the five sections assumes any particular stream. Quantitative Techniques uses class 10 level mathematics only, so a student who dropped mathematics after class 10 is not at a disadvantage.

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Q: Is there an age limit or a cap on attempts?
A: There is no upper age limit and no lower age limit for CLAT UG, and there is no restriction on the number of attempts.

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Q: When is the exam held and when does registration open?
A: CLAT is usually held on the first or second Sunday of December, for admission in the following academic session. CLAT 2027 is scheduled for 6 December 2026, and the application window opened on 3 August 2026. Always confirm the dates against the notification for your cycle on the Consortium website.

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Q: What is the application fee?
A: Based on the previous cycle, approximately ₹4,000 for General, OBC and other categories and ₹3,500 for SC and ST candidates. Previous year question papers are usually charged separately. Confirm the current figures in the live notification.

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Q: Is NLU Delhi part of CLAT?
A: No. National Law University Delhi conducts its own entrance test, AILET, and does not admit through CLAT. Many CLAT aspirants write both.

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Q: How is admission actually decided after the result?
A: Purely by your All India Rank, applied through the Consortium's centralised counselling. You submit your preference order of universities and programmes, and seats are allotted across successive rounds based on rank, category and the reservation policy of each university. There is no qualifying percentage in CLAT. Everything is relative to how other candidates performed that year.

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Q: What score should I be aiming for?
A: There is no fixed cutoff. It moves every year with the difficulty of the paper, the number of candidates and the category and university you are targeting. The practical approach is to look at the previous two or three years of closing ranks for the universities you want, and to track your accuracy percentage in mocks rather than chasing a single target number.

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Q: Is there any domicile or state quota?
A: CLAT itself has no domicile requirement, and any Indian candidate can appear from anywhere. However, several National Law Universities reserve a share of their seats for candidates domiciled in their own state, and those rules belong to the individual university, not to the Consortium. Check the seat matrix of each university you plan to fill in your preference list.

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Q: How is CLAT UG different from CLAT PG?
A: CLAT UG is for admission to the five year integrated law programme after class 12. CLAT PG is for LL.M. admission and requires an LL.B. degree with 50 percent marks, relaxed to 45 percent for SC and ST candidates. Both papers now carry 120 questions in 2 hours, but the PG paper is built on actual legal knowledge, while the UG paper is not.

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Q: Can I prepare for CLAT alongside my board examinations?
A: Yes, and the two support each other more than they clash. CLAT falls in early December, several months before board examinations, so the heavy phase of each lands in a different part of the year. The core CLAT skills, reading long passages carefully and applying class 10 mathematics, are things your school work is already building.