This year's edition of the Maharashtra Common Entrance Test for Law (MH-CET Law), held for admission to law colleges in the State, is slated to be held on Saturday, May 18.

Among the colleges that use MH-CET Law scores for admission are Government Law College, Mumbai and ILS Law College, Pune.

We caught up with students who topped previous editions of MH-CET Law to find out how they aced the exam.

Yash Choudhary [AIR - 1, 2021]

On subject-wise preparation, Yash, who is currently a third year student at ILS Law College, said,

"For Maths, apart from having a good hold on concepts, it is important to learn all the short tricks because it all boils down to how fast you can solve. RS Agarwal is good book. Solve it smartly, no need to fully do it, practice more the areas which you feel weak."

For English, he suggested extensive reading of newspapers, magazines, articles on the internet and novels so as to improve one's reading speed and comprehension. The focus areas are synonyms, antonyms, jumbled sentences, idioms and grammar. The book 'Word Power Made Easy' is highly recommended for enhancing vocabulary, he said.

For General Knowledge, he suggested reading The Hindu or The Indian Express.

"Prepare GK from only 2 to 3 good resources which cover overall. Don’t run after a lot of resources. Focus specially a little more on constitutional GK and static GK and keep proper track of GK till the very last. One can do this with the help of Drishti IAS and any one GK magazine like Competition in Focus/Pratiyogita Darpan. Daily newspaper reading + GKToday and the GK which you see in mocks is more than sufficient. Study IQ top 200 or 300 monthly MCQS is also a good series to follow."

For legal reasoning, one should cover basic concepts in torts, contracts and criminal law, and one must also study the Bills and Acts passed in the recent past. For logical reasoning, he said,

"For analytical reasoning, Arihant/RS Agarwal is a good book, and for critical reasoning, MK Pandey/GMAT Grail is a good source. It is important to learn short tricks for this section too, it’ll help a lot."

Mansi Pathak [AIR 15, 2023]

Mansi, who is a first year student at ILS, said,

"For English, I mainly relied on the book 'English is Easy' by Chetananand Singh, which covers all aspects - vocabulary, reading comprehension and grammar. I also made notes of difficult words from what I read in The Hindu newspaper. For static GK, I referred to selected portions of the book Lucent - to cover Ancient History, polity, freedom struggle from Modern India and a miscellaneous portion which is at the end of the book. Start preparing this section as early as possible. Facts are something that need to be mugged up."

She noted that for the previous years' question papers, a lot was taken from the GKToday MCQs PDFs from the past six months.

"The MHCET board also seems to refer to these PDFs since many questions are referred. For legal reasoning, I made thorough notes from YouTube videos on basics of criminal, torts and contract law and also practiced previous year papers for facts and principle-based questions. For logical reasoning, I referred to RS Agrawal and Youtube channels like FreeToLearn and Adda 24x7."

For maths, she suggested solving 10-20 mocks and also previous years' question papers to get a hang of how the question paper is.

As a general tip on attempting the exam, Mansi said,

"One should know the sequence in which they are comfortable to attempt the paper. Also, allot a time limit for each section. It would be best to solve GK first. If any section takes longer, it is important to move on to the next section."

Ankush Kumar [AIR 18, 2022]

Apart from what has already been suggested, Ankush referred to Parcham Classes on YouTube for GK and current affairs. For logical reasoning, he referred to specific topic-wise videos of Malviya Academy.

"In logical reasoning, pay attention to topics like Syllogisms, Blood Relations, Calendar, Analogy, Coding Decoding, Data Insufficiency, etc. Practice a lot of questions in Logical reasoning - both analytical and critical. For quantitative aptitude, clear your basics and solve questions specifically for percentage, profit and loss and data interpretation."

Shruti Maharshi [AIR 96, 2022]

Shruti said that practice for the CLAT exam held her in good stead while attempting the MHCET exam.

"If you prepare for CLAT and are thorough with the preparation for the exam, it is sufficient for MHCET and the exam will go very well. There is no negative marking and ample amount of time - 2 hours for 150 questions. For maths, solving previous year questions will suffice. For logical reasoning, it is important to understand the concepts. Current affairs aren't as difficult as CLAT. First, focus on basics of  static GK - history, geography and basics of the Constitution like, who was in the drafting committee of the Constitution, how many Articles does the Constitution have, etc."  

As general advice for students appearing for the MHCET exam, Yash said,

"Take care of your health. In this prep you can’t afford to get ill. You will lose time. Eat healthy, regularly play a sport daily and keep one hobby so that you don’t stress out. Keep your top notch preparation directed towards CLAT and AILET. It will help tremendously for MHCET. Do not leave any section in your preparation. For example, if you fear math, then practice math a lot but don’t leave it. You will lose your edge in exam. Follow the Pomodoro Technique if you like it, it helped me a lot. If you feel stress or something, take a break of a day and then resume. It’s a long race. Revision strategy is crucial. In the last 15 to 20 days, don’t learn something new. Revise all what you have studied throughout the year."

On the strategies to adopt on the day of the exam, he said,

"It is very important to be relaxed, so that you can perform your best. It’s possible only if you are confident, and confidence will only come if you have faith on your preparation. Read all instructions very carefully and preferably do not change your paper attempting strategy on the day. Stick to it and have faith. Don’t leave all OMR for the last. Complete it after every section. If you don’t know any question, skip it and move on. Come back later to it. MHCET is a fairly short paper; you can easily do it in time."