This brief has been written by Preeti Pallavi Jena, from Kiit Law School.
Table of Contents
Introduction
THE SPEAKER: Abhyuday Agarwal
He is the Co-founder and COO of LawSikho, iPleaders, and Superlawyer.net. He has graduated from West Bengal National University of Juridical Sciences in the year 2011 and currently heads the content team and liaises with subject matter experts, looking into online delivery of Lawsikho’s courses and relationships with technology vendors and university or industry collaborators. He also helps the companies and organizations to manage legal learning needs for their internal teams.
What is to be done?
Law is very vast and it’s not a day or a month or a year’s process to crack or clear a judiciary examination. Students fail to clear this because they lose their focus to achieve the goal soon and this is because they don’t plan to compete. They are still confused on where to start and where to go. This leads to unsuccessfulness and less focus on achieving the goal.
Studying the law subjects for college exams is totally different and not comparable with the competitive exam preparation. This is because in the case of the college exams, we only read 5 to 6 subjects per semester and that too 1 week or 2 weeks prior to the examination date just for the sake of completing the exam. But this is not even half the work required for the competitive examination. Hence, we cannot compare them at all. For the judiciary examination, you need more time, in fact, a lot more time. If you start studying late it will be tough and quite difficult though not impossible to complete.
If you want to prepare perfectly for the judiciary, the minimum number of hours required to study or complete the syllabus is approximately 3000 hours. This is for anyone state examination and if you go for 2, 3 then the time or hour increases accordingly.
What do we need to do for the preparation of the judiciary exam?
We have to customize the preparation by adding more time when we go for one or more states. Because in different states the courses, some patterns, few books and the procedure are not the same. Additional efforts are really required. If we distribute the time from 1st year to 5 years, each day approximately you have to read for 5 to 6 hours and if you are starting directly in 5th year then per day it is 14 to 15 hours which will not be comfortable to do.
What are the learning techniques needed to see?
Improving learning techniques is important to reap the rewards of humongous hours of study. Learning techniques means we read a few portions and think that we have remembered it but at that time we might know only 50 to 60 % of it. So to see that we have learned following are some steps or guidelines:
- Make your own study techniques
- Test mechanism( to keep a track of what done)
- Write and reproduce what you learn( sometimes we forget what we learned)
- Try answering questions( maybe MCQ or long questions)
- Ask someone to keep a check on you and your daily works
Creating backups
It is not difficult to create backups in litigation or corporate jobs while preparing for judiciary exams if you have started preparing a bit early. The only thing you need to do is keep focused on what you are upto.
When you get a thought that others have fun, why can’t I chill, make yourself understand at that time that you will be one of the few from the lakhs of candidates who want to crack the exam? Your life path will look different from others after 5 years. Remember one thing that opportunities will never wait for you. If you get one go for it, don’t simply waste it. You need to invest more time. Preparing a backup is really important. It boosts confidence in you. As we know that judiciary is a competitive exam and nothing can guarantee that you will qualify or get it anyhow so these backups can make you feel secured at that time and not hopeless.
Methods to follow
- Use superior planning: this planning is underrated. Hard Work is overrated. Quality of reading is concerned.
- Prepare and follow a daily study plan.
- Spend 1-2 hours on mental health, physical fitness & visualizations, no matter what fixes your nutrition.
- State-specific preparation is very important. You cannot confuse judiciary preparation for one state with other exams.
- It takes time to become familiar with general studies, answers writing for mains & judgment writing. Getting into the habit early like everyday 20 minutes can help you.
- Your first attempt must be your best attempt. Living costs & psychological costs of attempting the exam for the second or third time are very high, & you may not know it. There will be pressure on you and you cannot explore fully. Don’t miss and waste the first attempt by saying it is very difficult to crack it in one attempt.
- All coaching classes are not the same. Choose wisely the one fits you or the one you need.
- Self-study is required.
- Interviewers don’t want practical experience, but they don’t appreciate a fresher’s mindset in a future judge.
AUDIENCE QUESTIONS:
What’s the correct age for preparation of judiciary exams?
There is nothing like the correct age. You can start once you are quite sure about the goal. It’s better if you can do a 1-year whole revision, mock papers etc. This can build more confidence and you can also know where you are lacking behind and improve yourself cause you will be having enough time. For that, you have to start your preparation as early as possible. 1st year will be great to start and will really be helpful.
How to consider college syllabus as preparation for the judiciary?
If there are matching subjects, like each semester’s law subjects which come under judiciary can be read properly at that time but for that, you first need to know what all subjects are coming in the judiciary examinations. In addition, go through the past year (last 10 years) question papers, mocks etc. do train yourself and analyze from which state what questions are coming from this subject. Do mix it. Read with a cool and calm mind.
If you have already completed LLB then what can you do?
There is nothing to worry since you know that you are late and lacking time so without wasting more time start reading and studying for at least 14 to 15 hours per day. It is not impossible. You have already done this in your board exams. Wisely utilize the time and skip the unnecessary part, do keep a track and you can surely achieve it. Keep accelerating yourself more and build confidence on you that you can do it.
How to create backups?
If you start studying or preparing for the judiciary a bit early like in 1st or 2nd year then you can simultaneously take part in internships as per your areas of interest. Don’t do any other subjects that won’t help you anyway and will waste your time also. Think wisely and just go for that.
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