How to Read the Newspaper for CLAT??

The importance of habitually reading a

newspaper in a CLAT aspirants routine cannot
be emphasised enough. Despite the innumerable
current affairs digests available in the market,
there is no alternative to a newspaper when it
comes to acing the General Knowledge
component of CLAT. Any other material should
only be used to supplement the newspaper
reading and not substitute it. Besides, a
newspaper not only improves your general
knowledge but can also improve your English
and logical reasoning.
In spite of these well-known benefits, students
often skip reading a newspaper finding it too
time consuming and tedious and instead rely on
Current Affairs digests. More importantly, even
those who do bother to pick up a newspaper, fail
to get the maximum out of the process. Here are

few things which every CLAT aspirant should

keep in mind while reading a newspaper, to
make it an effective and useful process.
1. Selection of the newspaper: Make sure you
select the national edition of any English news
daily which in your opinion presents a balanced
representation of the major events in the country
without focusing too much on any particular
section. We strongly recommend The Hindu as
one such newspaper, which has proven useful to
a number of CLAT aspirants in the past.
2. Read but DO NOT memorise: While reading
any news item, do not focus on remembering
the information provided. It is highly probable
that you will remember none, by the time CLAT
takes place. Read the news item like a story,
understand why a particular event happened,
and think about what could be the consequences
of that event. Basic pneumonic guides suggest

that this is a much better way of remembering

the information. The story will stay with you
longer.
3. Read every news item fully: Continuing from
the previous point, dont just gloss over the
headlines of each event but delve into the entire
news item. This will make you appreciate the
full story and also help you to remember the
event better.
4. Maintain a scrap-book: You should always
have a diary or notebook in hand, while you
read the newspaper. This is to note down all the
important happenings in a summary. Do this for
each day. Just before the CLAT exam, you will
have your own Current Affairs compendium.
Your own compendium will be easier to
remember than any other supplement in the
market, because you would have put your effort
in preparing it.

5. Learn to Select: Filter out useful information

from the newspaper. Ask yourself, is this a
possible question for CLAT? Generally, local
happenings which do not have national
relevance would not be important. Similarly,
highly technical business news would have
lesser chance of appearing in your CLAT paper.
6. Keep an eye for Static General Knowledge:
Interspersed with current affairs, you will also
find a lot of information relevant to your static
GK component in a news item. Look out for
these and note them separately. To give you an
example, a story about who won the Wimbledon
Cup in tennis may also contain information
about grand slams in general and the nature of
these tournaments. This is static GK. Dont miss
out on it.
7. Improve your vocabulary: There will be
several words with which you are unfamiliar in

the newspaper. Make it a point to note these

down in a notebook and find out the meanings
from a dictionary later. If you go through the list
of words prepared by you regularly, your
vocabulary will improve considerably.
Moreover, a number of times news items or
editorials are used as comprehension passages
so you might just get lucky in the exam
8. Editorials are important: The editorials are a
must read for three reasons. First, you will get a
deeper understanding of the latest happenings in
the country. Second, the editorial will teach you
sentence construction and grammar like no other
component. Third, it will also boost your critical
reasoning by training you to think logically and
identify arguments, propositions and reasons.
9. Fix a time: Allot a particular part of your day
for newspaper reading, preferably an hour or
more. This will keep you regular and after some

time it will become an engrained habit. This will

also ensure that you take newspaper reading as a
serious exercise.
10. Do not pile: On a number of days,
you might not want to read the
newspaper because you had too much
work to do or you have something
more interesting to do or a similar
reason. On such days, you will feel
that you are doing nothing wrong
because you can still read the same
newspaper the next day. Before you
realise, this attitude will result in a
stack of unread newspapers on your
table none of which will ever see the
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