Should I spend more time on strengths or weaknesses?

With 30 days left for CLAT, deciding whether to focus more on your strengths or weaknesses can make a big difference in your preparation. Here’s a balanced approach to help you get the best results from your time:

1. Strengths: Maximise Your Scoring Potential

Your strengths are the sections or topics you’re already comfortable with, which means you have a higher chance of scoring well in them. By spending some time revising and practising your strong areas, you can ensure that you’ll score maximum marks there. Here’s how to approach your strengths effectively:

• Consistency: Regular practice in your strong areas can help maintain accuracy and speed. This will ensure that you don’t lose easy marks due to overconfidence or complacency.
• Refinement: Focus on refining any small gaps in your strong areas. For instance, if you’re good at reading comprehension but tend to miss out on specific inference questions, dedicate a bit of extra time to those.
• Mock Test Strategy: Your strengths can be the foundation of your mock test strategy. During mocks, focus on perfecting these sections first to secure solid marks, which will give you confidence as you tackle more challenging parts.

Spending 30-40% of your time on strengths allows you to secure the marks you’re confident about, building a strong foundation for your score.

2. Weaknesses: Focus on Targeted Improvement

Your weaknesses are areas where you’re more likely to lose marks, so improving them can prevent unnecessary errors. However, don’t aim to turn every weakness into a strength in this limited time; instead, focus on manageable improvements. Here’s a good approach:

• Prioritise Weaknesses with High Impact: If there’s a weak area that carries more weight in the exam, prioritise that. For example, if you struggle with Legal Reasoning but it’s a high-scoring section, spend focused time improving accuracy on commonly asked question types.
• Limit New Topics: If there are entire topics you haven’t studied at all, consider skipping them unless they’re highly likely to appear in the exam. For weaknesses, focus on refining areas you’re somewhat familiar with rather than starting something new.
• Set Improvement Goals: Set small, specific goals for each weak area, such as improving accuracy on certain question types or reducing the time spent per question. This targeted approach helps you track progress without feeling overwhelmed.

Dedicating around 40-50% of your time to weaknesses ensures you’re making meaningful improvements without sacrificing your confidence.

3. Balance and Adapt Based on Performance

As you go through your final weeks, keep track of your progress. If you see improvement in certain weak areas, adjust your focus to other sections as needed. Similarly, if you start seeing drops in performance in your strong areas, revisit those topics to maintain your advantage.

4. Mock Tests to Consolidate Both

Use mock tests to bring both your strengths and weaknesses together. Analyse each test to see where your strengths are helping you and where your weaknesses are impacting your score. Spend some time after each test reviewing mistakes, which will give you a clear idea of where to focus next.

In Summary

• Strengths: Spend around 30-40% of your time maintaining and refining them.
• Weaknesses: Dedicate around 40-50% of your time to make targeted improvements.
• Mock Tests: Use them as a tool to integrate both strengths and weaknesses into a cohesive strategy.