Syllabus — What Each Section Really Tests

Reading-comprehension passages in a literary register — reflective essays and fiction, not news reports.

• Inference is the single largest skill (~40% of the section), with vocabulary-in-context next (~24%) — and it 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.

News-and-editorial passages, but with a static memorisation load (~38% of the section) that 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.

The largest section — and NOT a test of what you know about the law: ~83% of questions hand you a legal principle in the passage and ask you to apply or infer from it; the remaining ~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.

Short arguments and puzzles you reason from — nothing from outside the passage is needed.

• ~66% of the section is critical thinking (draw a conclusion, find the assumption, strengthen / weaken); the remaining ~33% 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• Puzzles are also the most-withdrawn question type — build the reflex to flag a broken set and move on.

The smallest section, but the hardest per question — and every question of it is Data Interpretation.

• No geometry or algebra since 2020 — every question reads a data set (table/figure/passage) and computes.
• Percentages dominate, 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.