One reminder up front: this is a proposal for CLAT 2028. CLAT 2027 keeps the current five-section pattern. Do not change your 2027 prep because of this.
The most eye-catching proposal in the 2026 report is for the undergraduate CLAT. The committee wants to shrink it from five sections to three, and change what those sections actually measure. This post goes through the whole thing, including the sample questions the report itself uses.
What the CLAT UG exam looks like today
Right now the CLAT UG is 120 questions in two hours, across five sections: English Language, Current Affairs and General Knowledge, Legal Reasoning, Logical Reasoning, and Quantitative Techniques. Each correct answer is worth 1 mark, and you lose 0.25 for a wrong one. Unanswered questions cost nothing.
The committee's core criticism is that four of these five sections drifted into testing the same narrow skill — a shallow kind of reading comprehension — instead of the range of aptitudes they were meant to measure. In many questions across English, GK, Legal Reasoning, and Logical Reasoning, the answer could be found more or less verbatim in the passage. Quantitative Techniques was the most reliable section, but the report found it repetitive, testing a narrow band of ratios and percentages without much higher-order reasoning.
The three proposed sections
The committee wants to fold the five into three.
1. Logical Reasoning and Legal Aptitude
This merges the old Legal Reasoning and Logical Reasoning sections into one. It would test two related abilities: applying given rules to a set of facts, and working out the underlying rule from a set of facts. Everything is hypothetical, and you answer only from what is provided. You do not need any real legal knowledge — the report warns that leaning on remembered law could actually hinder you.
Rule application, explained with the report's example: you are given two short rules about when a manufacturer is liable for a defective product, and when a person who knowingly takes a risk cannot then blame the manufacturer. Then a story: Metro Appliances makes blenders; Masoom notices his lid vibrates loosely, keeps using it, and is later burned when it flies off while blending hot daal; it turns out the whole batch had a misaligned lock that loosens above 65 degrees. A series of questions then asks whether the blender was "defective," whether Masoom was using it "in the manner normal for the product," and whether his own awareness of the loose lid bars his claim. Notice what is being tested: your ability to pick out the words that matter in a rule, decide how they apply, and see how the answer shifts when the facts change slightly. No case law. Just careful reasoning.
Rule derivation flips it around. In another sample, a cyclist named Mala clips the mirror of a parked car while filtering through traffic. You are given five candidate rules and asked which one would let the car owner recover — then the facts are tweaked (the mirror was abnormally extended by the owner's son; then, the collision would have happened anyway) and you have to find the rule that fits each new version. Here you are reasoning from facts up to the rule, not the other way round.
2. Language and Comprehension
This is the old English section, rebuilt. The committee is explicit that language would not be tested for its own sake — not grammar drills, not vocabulary lists — but as a vehicle for understanding and reasoning. It would prize what it calls functional literacy: reading a passage as a whole, reading a sentence in the light of the ones around it, spotting what is implied rather than stated, catching tone, and judging which claims strengthen or weaken an argument.
The report's samples show the flavour. One pairs Tagore's poem "Vocation" with a critic's response, and asks you to work out whose voice the poem speaks in (a comfortable, affluent child, not the working people he envies), how to read its final metaphor, and what the critic is really arguing. Another, adapted from the UK's LNAT, gives four different "voices" writing about "helicopter parents" and asks which voice implies rather than states that such parents are wealthy, and what all the voices agree on. These reward reading between the lines, not matching keywords.
3. Quantitative Techniques
This survives, but with more variety and a clearer purpose. The maths stays basic — roughly Class 10 level. The point is reasoning with numbers and data rather than heavy calculation: interpreting information, spotting patterns, and applying simple tools.
The report borrows question styles from tests like the GMAT and LSAT. "Data sufficiency" questions ask not for an answer but whether the information given is even enough to answer — for example, whether you can work out a city's daily water-loss cost from two statements, alone or together. "Conceptual numeracy" questions are short applied word problems. And a "quantitative and representational logic" set is essentially a logic puzzle — scheduling three films across three days under a set of constraints — where the reasoning matters more than the arithmetic.
Why General Knowledge would be removed
This is the change students will feel most. The report recommends dropping the Current Affairs and General Knowledge section altogether.
Its reasoning: in practice that section swung between trivia and disguised comprehension. Some questions simply restated information from the passage, rewarding attention rather than knowledge. Others turned on obscure facts — a minor historical detail, an ephemeral data point — that reward rote learning. It also drew on uneven source material, sometimes minor political speeches rather than high-quality journalism. Worst of all, the committee felt it pushed students toward memorisation and coaching, which hits students who cannot afford coaching hardest. So it goes.
Fewer questions, same two hours
Each of the three sections would have no more than 10 to 15 questions. That is far fewer than today. The clock stays at two hours.
That is deliberate. The stated goal is to stop rewarding speed. With fewer, harder questions and the same time on the clock, you are meant to slow down, read properly, and think — not race and guess. As the report puts it, the aim is thoughtful, considered answers over raw pace.
Will the new CLAT have an essay?
The committee liked the idea of a written essay, because building an argument in clear prose is something no multiple-choice question can test. But several Vice-Chancellors flagged two real problems: judging essays objectively and fairly, and the sheer volume of marking when tens of thousands sit the exam.
So it stopped short of recommending an essay now. Instead it sketched a way to make one workable later — offer a choice of prompts with strong arguments on both sides and no need for legal knowledge, cap answers at 600 words, and mark them locally: score the multiple-choice sections first, shortlist the top candidates, then have each law school mark only the essays of students who ranked it first. It suggested revisiting the essay after about three years, once the postgraduate written component has been tried out.
Old versus new CLAT UG pattern, at a glance
Current pattern: English Language; Current Affairs and General Knowledge; Legal Reasoning; Logical Reasoning; Quantitative Techniques — 120 questions in two hours.
Proposed pattern: Logical Reasoning and Legal Aptitude; Language and Comprehension; Quantitative Techniques — roughly 10 to 15 questions each, in two hours, with Current Affairs and General Knowledge removed.
How to prepare for the new CLAT pattern
For CLAT 2027: nothing changes, so prepare for the current five sections.
For CLAT 2028 and beyond, if these proposals go through, three habits carry the most weight. First, read closely and slowly enough to catch tone and implication, not just surface facts — long-form journalism, essays, and judgments are good practice. Second, drill logical reasoning by applying rules to fact patterns and, harder, deriving rules from facts. Third, keep quantitative practice going, but focus on interpreting data and deciding whether information is sufficient, rather than speed calculation. All three of these help you under the current pattern too, so none of the effort is wasted. A timed mock test is the quickest way to see where those skills stand today.
Frequently asked questions
What is the new CLAT UG exam pattern?
The 2026 report proposes three sections instead of five: (1) Logical Reasoning and Legal Aptitude, (2) Language and Comprehension, and (3) Quantitative Techniques. General Knowledge and Current Affairs would be removed. Each section would have 10 to 15 questions, and the exam would stay two hours long. This is a proposal for CLAT 2028; CLAT 2027 is unchanged.
Is General Knowledge being removed from the CLAT?
The report recommends removing the Current Affairs and General Knowledge section from the undergraduate CLAT, because in practice it rewarded memorising trivia or reading facts back out of the passage rather than testing aptitude. This is a proposal for 2028, not a change to CLAT 2027.
How many questions will the new CLAT UG have?
The report proposes no more than 10 to 15 questions per section across three sections — far fewer than the current 120 — with the same two-hour duration, to reward thoughtful answers over speed.
Will the new CLAT have an essay?
Not immediately. The committee liked the idea but flagged problems with marking essays fairly at scale, so it did not recommend one now. It left a roadmap to possibly add one after about three years.
What is the Logical Reasoning and Legal Aptitude section?
It merges the old Legal Reasoning and Logical Reasoning sections. It tests applying given rules to facts and working out rules from facts, using entirely hypothetical scenarios. You do not need any real legal knowledge to answer.
Does the new CLAT UG need prior legal knowledge?
No. The proposed Logical Reasoning and Legal Aptitude section is explicitly designed so that no existing knowledge of the law is required, and the report warns that relying on remembered law could actually hinder you.