Hi Hussain,

Contrary to popular belief, coaching isn’t essential for securing great marks in any exam. Some would argue that you need to get tutors for class 12th Boards even, but I managed to do just fine without them and score 95%. The important thing is to make the most of the resources available.

1. Be thorough with your school/college material. Even if it doesn’t cover the entire syllabus, your basic concepts will be formed from these texts only and this foundation is very important for tackling the more complex questions asked in CLAT.

2. Talk to your teachers and seniors who have appeared for CLAT before. Discuss your plan to appear for CLAT without any coaching and get recommendations for the best books to study from and any other online resources to make use of.

Here are a few books to start with, section wise:

English: Word Power Made Easy by Norman Lewis

Wren and Martin for grammar

Legal Aptitude: Universal’s LLB Entrance Guide

Legal Aptitude and Legal Reasoning by A.P. Bhardawaj

Logical Reasoning: Verbal and Non-Verbal Reasoning by R.S. Aggarwal

Analytical Reasoning by MK Pandey

GK: Objective General Knowledge by Arihant Publications

Pearson’s Concise GK Manual

The newspaper, of course

Elementary Mathematics: M.K. Tyra for Maths Short Tricks

R.S. Aggarwal

3. Arrange for frequent mock tests . Begin with topic-wise tests and once you begin to cover the syllabus, switch to full-length mocks. Keep these properly timed. Most importantly, analyze your performance on these mocks and spot your strengths and weaknesses. Your subsequent preparation should proceed according to what you uncover in your analysis.

A few apps that I have found which help me to analyze my performance on the mocks I take are CLAT Possible. Sriram’s are worth trying if money is not an issue. For previous year’s papers, I downloaded the CLAT app by EduRev CLAT 2018 Law entrance Preparation: Legal Aptitude - Android Apps on Google Play

4. Get a community . It’s always better to prepare for someone else. You don’t need to know the exact details of how someone is coming along. But it is absolutely recommended to have a group of people on hand to answer any doubts or motivate you when you get stuck. I ask my friends, get help from teachers (who, more or less, oversee my preparation now), and frequently participate in the forums on the CLAT app by EduRev . This amount of ‘group prep’ works very well for me.

Good Luck!