CLAT Aspirants: Did you take your first Mock Test?

We are in December 2014. CLAT exam is just 5 months away. You have been preparing for the CLAT exam since the last one year or more. Have you taken your first mock test? Abhyaas Law Prep(ALP) students took their first mock test online last weekend. It was a very interesting experience, and a very enriching one too.

At what stage of preparation should one attempt a mock test? What do you achieve by attempting mock tests? As ALP students discovered over the weekend, a mock test gives you an experience of what the actual CLAT exam could be like. Right from booking a slot, reaching the test center and taking a proctored test, it was a novel experience.

Some of the doubts that linger in the minds of students are “The syllabus is not yet completed….”, “I do not have enough practice”, ”Should I finish all my study material and classes before taking tests?”. Well, there is no perfect time to start attempting mocks. Gaining Conceptual Knowledge and Developing a test strategy are two separate aspects of test preparation. Gaining conceptual knowledge can happen over a longer period. But as you gain the conceptual knowledge, you should start focusing on developing your strategy. It is high time you start experiencing how the CLAT exam actually looks like.

As you finish the first mock test, you would have the following learnings:

1) The time management would be all awry. Most of you would have barely been able to finish reading all the questions, let alone solving them. Some of you would have done exceedingly well in one or two sections, but not even attempted some other sections. If you have faced these situations, do not panic. It happens to most students on their first mock experience. So far, you would have only solved questions at your own pace. That is what you do as you master the concepts. However, in an exam, the focus is on maximizing your efforts and time on questions that you can answer confidently. As you attempt more mocks, you will figure out how to manage the given time, as ALP mentors will help you define your strategy.

2) Of all the questions that you have attempted, maybe only 50% are correct and the remaining are incorrect. As a result, you have lost quite a few marks due to the negative marking, bringing your score down. One important learning is that you need to attempt a question only if you are confident of your answer. All through your education, you have been advised by your parents and teachers to answer all questions. Never leave a question unanswered. Sometimes, you are even asked to attempt more than the required number (when there is choice), to be on the safe side. You now need to unlearn that!! Attempting competitive exams, and that too, with negative marking, is a completely different ballgame. You would have now realized that attempting more questions is actually detrimental unless you are sure of the answers.

3) Attempting an online exam is not as bad as you envisaged. Navigation, reading off a screen and solving on paper is not actually that difficult. As I have mentioned in my earlier post on Online CLAT, you are comfortable with technology and all mobile devices. So navigating questions on a screen is a cake-walk. Solving the questions correctly is a different aspect, but that can be mastered only with practice, which can be done offline.

At the end of the first mock test, you would have got a sense of the exam format, the challenges of time management and negative marking. You now need to focus on completing your study material and building your conceptual knowledge. The more adept you are at solving problems, time management and negative marking will be less of a challenge. As you take more mocks over the next few months, you will be able to define and refine your strategy.

Gear up for the next mock test that will be conducted by Abhyaas Law Prep in the first week of January 2015!!