The CLAT Expert Committee's terms of reference expressly included a "review of comparable entrance examinations like LSAT and LNAT in the US and UK respectively" (p. 3 of its Report). That makes the comparison well founded, and it is worth doing carefully — because the useful part is not the surface resemblance but what the comparison implies about how questions are set.
Nothing has been adopted. The Consortium froze the pattern for CLAT 2027 and referred the recommendations onward. The CLAT 2028 page separates the proposals from the decisions, with page references.
What the LNAT is
The National Admissions Test for Law, used for law admissions by a group of UK universities. The Report counts seven consortium members, who oversee the test, and eleven universities using it (p. 65, n. 52).
Two parts. A multiple-choice section of comprehension and reasoning questions on passages, and an essay written under time pressure on a general topic.
Two features matter for this comparison. It tests no legal knowledge — there is nothing to learn, only a skill to build. And its multiple-choice section has far fewer questions than CLAT, each attached to a passage, with substantially more time per question.
What the proposal shares with it
Far fewer questions. The clearest resemblance, though the Report does not attribute it to the LNAT. The proposal is ten to fifteen questions a section across three sections in two hours (p. 32), against CLAT's current 120 questions in 120 minutes.
That is the structural change with the largest practical consequence. Fewer questions in the same time means each one is worth much more, and can be much longer and harder. A paper of forty questions in two hours is not a shorter version of a paper of 120 — it is a different kind of test, in which you cannot bank marks by moving quickly through easy items.
No general knowledge. The proposal removes the GK and Current Affairs section entirely (p. 31). The LNAT tests no knowledge at all, and the resemblance is real, though the proposed paper retains legal aptitude, which the LNAT does not have.
Comprehension as the spine. Both make close reading the dominant skill.
An essay, eventually. The Report proposes no essay for now but sets out a roadmap for adding one in later cycles (pp. 47–50). The LNAT has one.
What it does not share
Legal aptitude survives. The proposed first section is Logical Reasoning and Legal Aptitude. Applying a stated principle to facts is a CLAT skill and remains one. The LNAT has no equivalent.
Quantitative Techniques survives, and grows. Under the proposal it would be one section of three rather than one of five — roughly a third of the paper rather than a tenth. The LNAT has no quantitative component.
The scale is different. CLAT is sat by a very large cohort for a fixed and much smaller number of seats, which constrains what is administratively feasible in a way that does not apply equally elsewhere.
So the proposed paper is not an LNAT with Indian content. It is a shorter, denser CLAT that has taken some ideas about question design from tests built on close reading.
What the Report itself says about the LNAT
The resemblances above are our reading. Where the Report names the LNAT, it does so five times, and only one is about question design.
- Free preparation material. The LNAT consortium makes sample papers freely available, which the Report cites in arguing that candidates should not need coaching for basic guidance (p. 14).
- A sample question. The second sample set for the proposed Language and Comprehension section, "Helicopter Parents" (four short "Voices" followed by inference questions), is marked as modified from LNAT practice tests (pp. 40–43, n. 31). This is the one direct borrowing in the proposed paper.
- A test of aptitude. The Report places CLAT in "a family of legal aptitude tests, including LSAT and LNAT", and says its proposals make CLAT truer to that stated purpose (pp. 61–62).
- Test design. Both the LSAT and the LNAT are said to be designed with construct validity in mind, with sections equated for difficulty and published reports on reliability and validity (p. 63).
- Who sets the paper. The LNAT is overseen by its member universities but designed and administered by an outside provider, Pearson VUE. The Report treats it as a comparator for professionalising how CLAT is set (p. 65).
What it means for preparation
The same answer whether or not any of this is adopted, which is what makes it worth acting on.
Read longer and harder material. Fewer, longer passages reward stamina over speed. Long-form non-fiction rather than coaching extracts.
Practise inference, not retrieval. A question you can answer by locating a sentence is the kind the reform is aimed at. Practise questions whose answers are not stated anywhere in the passage.
Get comfortable with multi-step reasoning. Two or three inferential steps chained together, which is what longer questions permit.
Do not abandon GK yet. Proposed for removal, not removed. Keep it cheap — the GK question covers why the asymmetry favours keeping it.
Take quantitative more seriously than the current weighting suggests. If the proportion changes, a section you had written off as a tenth of the paper becomes a third.
Should you use LNAT material?
Only if you are sitting the LNAT.
Its comprehension passages are decent reading practice — well constructed, genuinely difficult, freely discussed. But preparing for an unadopted Indian pattern using another country's test is a poor use of a Class 11 year, and its essay component has no CLAT equivalent.
Better use of the same hour: read a book. The skill both tests reward is built by volume of real reading, not by practising either test's format.
The part that already applies
Buried in the Governing Body's decision is the thing that affects the 2027 cohort now. The Convenor and paper setters were asked to take the Report's suggestions on question format and quality on board "in a feasible manner" for CLAT 2027.
The structure does not change. The questions may get harder in exactly the direction this comparison points: more inference, fewer answers findable by locating a stated fact.
That is worth acting on this year, whatever happens to the pattern in 2028.
Where to start
The CLAT 2028 page has the proposals with page references and the adoption position. The Class 11 plan covers preparing for both possible papers at once.
For a current measurement of the skills both versions reward, the free Diagnostic Test is a full-length timed paper with a section-wise and timing breakdown at the end.