Introduction to the CLAT Reading Comprehension Section
Instructors of law, both academic and practitioners, may impose daunting expectations of laborious reading. These documents, frequently dense, intricate, and copious are fundamental to the legal discipline. Correspondingly, the CLAT assesses reading proficiency as part of its examination of logical cognition and analytical thought. From apprehending the primary subject of a portion to extrapolating the author's opinion, the CLAT Reading Comprehension section gauges your capacity to rapidly and completely assimilate literature.
How tough was this to read? 😁
Put simply, Law students must be able to comprehend dense and intricate documents in order to succeed academically. The CLAT Reading Comprehension section is designed to evaluate their ability to quickly and thoroughly understand texts, from identifying the main point to recognizing the author's opinion. Mastery of this skill is essential for any student of the law.
Law students and attorneys emphasize the extensive amounts of reading they must complete. These readings, usually dense, complex, and lengthy, are a staple of the legal profession. Accordingly, the CLAT tests reading comprehension in addition to its sections on analytical and logical reasoning. The CLAT Reading Comprehension section evaluates an individual's ability to quickly and thoroughly synthesize written material by understanding the main point of a passage and making inferences about what the author says.
This section of the exam requires you to read and analyze passages of text from a variety of topics. The passages are edited to be around 450-550 words long and contain information which you will use to answer objective questions. You must be able to process large amounts of information, discern patterns between the text, and apply the information to other scenarios. This section does not require any outside knowledge and makes this section all the more challenging for the students.
Law students and attorneys emphasize the extensive amounts of reading they must complete. These readings, usually dense, complex, and lengthy, are a staple of the legal profession. Accordingly, the CLAT tests reading comprehension in addition to its sections on analytical and logical reasoning. The CLAT Reading Comprehension section evaluates an individual's ability to quickly and thoroughly synthesize written material by understanding the main point of a passage and making inferences about what the author says.
Despite this drawback, let's explore some neat tricks and stratgies that will help you ace this section in the CLAT with absolute ease.
This article will make you more confident with the CLAT reading section, and ensure that you have key takeaways that you can apply to your learning outcomes for the CLAT.
CLAT Reading Comprehension Section Structure
The CLAT will include 5 graded Reading Comprehension Passages, includes 28 - 32 multiple-choice questions. This section consists of 5 - 6 passages, with 5 questions per passage. The passages are usually single articles and there is no set order for where the paired passage appears or order for the passages in general; thus, the difficulty of the passages does not necessarily increase as one progresses through the exam.
Four answer choices will be provided for each question in the section, though only one of them will be the correct answer that most accurately responds to the question. The CLAT differentiates the topics of these questions into various categories, which include main idea or primary purpose, information that is explicitly stated, information or ideas that can be inferred, meaning or purpose of words or phrases as used in context, organization or structure, application of information in a new context, principles that function in the selection, analogies to claims or arguments in the selection, an author’s attitude as revealed in the tone of a passage or the language used, the impact of new information on claims or arguments in the selection.
***If this sounds super exotic, don't you worry, we'll break it down for you:
Here are the question categories you’ll need to be familiar with for the CLAT reading section:
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Main idea
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Stated information
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Inferred information
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Word/phrases in context
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Organization
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Application
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Principles
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Analogies
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Author’s attitude
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New information
Broadly, the questions fall into the categories of reviewing for
- overall understanding;
- identifying the function/role of words, phrases, sentences, and paragraphs; and
- making inferences
Here's a diagram:
Questions for each passage typically start with the main point or purpose of that passage. The questions for a given passage will be listed out and the Reading section may reference one or both of the paired readings.