AILET (NLU Delhi) 2012- Analysis

Overview: Although the paper was not unlike previous years but it did defy expectations of the students. Where all the rest of the exams, including CLAT, are shifting focus from knowledge based questions to reasoning based questions, NLU-Delhi focused on knowledge rather than reasoning aptitude.

Like the previous year, the total number of questions that appeared was 150. These questions were to be solved in 90 minutes. Each question carried 1 mark. The paper was divided into 5 sections. 35 marks were allotted to four sections (English, Logical reasoning, Legal reasoning and General Knowledge) and 10 marks to the section on Mathematics.

English: This section was of moderate difficulty level. Most of the students were able to attempt almost all the questions. There was one Reading Comprehension passage with six questions. The passage was based on group think (Psychology) and needed careful reading .Rest of the questions in this section were of easy-moderate difficulty level. There were questions on Synonyms, Antonyms, Fill in the blanks based on Preposition and Tenses, 1 Cloze Test, Para Jumbles (6 Sentence type where first and the last sentence is fixed), Error Detection etc.

Logical Reasoning: The Logical Reasoning section had only a few questions on Critical Reasoning .Of these there were questions based on assumptions, conclusions, strengthening and weakening of arguments etc. Rest of the questions were based on Analytical Reasoning .In Analytical Reasoning, there were 2 sets with 4-5 questions each and quite a few questions on series and coding-decoding. This section was also of moderate difficulty level.

Mathematics: This was perhaps the easiest section in the paper. Most of the questions were from Arithmetic and there were no questions from Geometry and Mensuration and Algebra. There were 2 questions on Ratio, 3 from Percentages and one question each from Time & Work, Compound Interest, Linear Equations, Age Problem and Number Systems.

Legal Aptitude: This year the Legal Aptitude section was a bit of a surprise, considering there was a paradigm shift in the pattern of the paper which stressed more on testing legal knowledge over legal reasoning. There were only 5 questions based on Legal Reasoning and rest were based on Legal Knowledge. The 5 questions based on reasoning were on the concepts of Law of Torts and Constitutional Law. Remaining 30 questions were from a variety of areas including but not limited to Preamble and Fundamental Rights from the constitutional law, Right to Information, Money bill, recent judgments etc. The reasoning based questions were easy but the legal knowledge based questions might have posed some difficulties for the students.

General Knowledge: This section was of Moderate High difficulty level. Total number of questions asked was 35. Questions were more from static GK and only a few questions were from current affairs. Economy and Science (especially Biology) dominated the entire paper. Nature of questions was less factual and more conceptual. Areas asked were: Science, Economy, Current Affairs, History, Polity, Sports, and Geography etc. Questions from science were tricky.

Overall the paper was of moderate difficulty level and an attempt of 125-130 could be considered good. The Cut-off for this paper should range between 95 to 100 marks. This unexpected paper might have thrown you into a whirlpool but now is the time to steady yourselves and prepare for the biggest bash of the exam season CLAT 2012.