AILET 2017 Topper Interview: AIR 3, Harshvardhan Tripathi loves watching cartoons & listening to Linkin Park

Harshvardhan Tripathi secured Rank 3 in AILET 2017 by scoring an impressive 99 marks in the law entrance exam. A student of Little Flower School, Gorakhpur, Harshvardhan revealed that apart from being regular in studies he did not have any set strategy to prepare for AILET exam.

Talking about his hobbies, he shared that he prefers sleeping or reading something on the internet. He also shared that he is a huge fan of rock music especially Linkin Park songs and he also likes listening to Ghazals and old songs. Further, talking about his likes and dislikes he said, “I am a regular viewer of all the cartoon shows broadcasted, ShinChan and Oggy and the Cockroaches being my favourite”. He further revealed that while preparing for his law entrance exams, “I usually rewarded myself after a mock test by watching cartoons for 2-3 hours straight”.

In conversation with Shiksha, Harshvardhan shared his success mantra for AILET 2017 and also offered prep tips to aspirants for All India Law Entrance Test (AILET) conducted by NLU Delhi.

Congratulations on your success! Did you expect to be one of the toppers of AILET 2017?

At one point of time, I fantasized about being AIR 1. It was more of "wish" rather than a goal. But in the last one month, I became clear that this was something I wanted to achieve. I wanted to be the topper. I am glad that this childish obsession of mine yielded fruits.

Whom do you attribute your success to?

I attribute my success to God, my parents, my mentor – Sir Sudhish from IMS Gorakhpur, my friends – Nishita, Shivansh, Saumya; my Seniors – Meghna, Suyash, Devansh, Shretima and LawKey.

Tell us about your family background

My parents are government doctors and my sister is Assistant Bank Manager. I come from a well-educated family where education is given a lot of importance but I am the first one to venture into the legal field.

How did you pick law as your preferred course?

Initially, I wanted to become a doctor. My parents were adamant on Engineering and hence made me choose Maths in Class 12. I eventually found out that I was not cut-out for that field. Thus, taking into consideration my inclination for debating and good communication skills, I decided to take up law as my field of study.

Is NLU Delhi your first preference?

No, my preference list goes like this – first preference is NLSIU, Bangalore followed by NALSAR University of Law, Hyderabad and then comes NLU Delhi.

Could you tell us your preparation strategy that helped you crack AILET exam?

I just studied in the regular way for CLAT. In the last 2-3 months, I began raising the difficulty level of questions I practiced. I solved questions without thinking which exam they were asked in. Due to this, I developed the ability to not be surprised by any type of questions asked in the exam and also the difficulty level of questions asked did not intimidate me. I worked hard and increased my speed to calculate so this became an added advantage in Mathematics section. For the legal section, more the number of questions you solve the better you get and your speed increases drastically. A regular reading habit is enough to score decent marks in English section. I was weak in the GK section and this remained the case till the very end of the year. I had no interest in it whatsoever and hence lost 5-10 marks which I could have scored. Logical Reasoning just requires regular intensive practice.

What most people ignore are the small vital topics like Legal Phrases, Phrasal, Verbs, Idioms, Vocabulary and the Lines. These topics should be practiced thoroughly because they are easy marks to score.

According to me, to prepare for AILET there is no one book that you should stick to. It also does not mean that you start reading from a plethora of books. Take one book and finish it. Also, as soon as you finish practicing from one book, pick up another book of some other exam and just go through it. This is what I did and this helped me immensely. Internet was my favourite place to spend time and I solved a lot of questions there. Also, video lectures on Youtube were very helpful.

Did you take any coaching for this exam?

I took coaching for CLAT and not AILET exam. Guidance that I received from IMS, LawKey and my seniors was sufficient.

Read more: How is CLAT different from AILET?

What study plan did you follow for this exam?

I had no study plan. I used to set up my daily targets and achieved them by the end of the day, this was all I did to prepare for the law exams.

How did you deal with your strengths and your weaknesses while preparing for the exam?

I was not very weak in any of the AILET exam sections and this was an advantage I had over my peers. I just kept brushing up topics in all the sections and regularly raised the bar of the difficulty level of the questions I solved. It is important to be exposed to a variety of questions in order to remove the fear of failing at the last moment. I worked on my psychological aspect – my mood swings during exams were drastic. So, I learnt the art of controlling my emotions. In the face of difficulties (which in my opinion is a sine qua non), my mentor Sir Sudhish and my friends, especially Nishita, motivated me throughout the year. They were the ones who actually prevented me from getting over-confident. They reminded me every day that it was still not my best and there was something even greater that I could achieve and I believe this is why I was able to achieve this result. My preparation was more of an emotional rather than an academic battle.

What other law entrance exams did you take?

I took CLAT, AILET and SET. In my opinion SET was the easiest in terms of difficulty level followed by CLAT. AILET was the toughest of all law exams.

Any tips for students who are planning to take the exam next year?

The biggest piece of advice that I would like to offer to students would be to work on your speed of solving questions. AILET requires the ability to solve questions at lightning rapidity. This needs a fair amount of practice beforehand. Secondly, all those taking this exam must have good knowledge of English language. This is necessary because this exam has questions that require aspirants to read a lot and that too complex sentences and words. In order to solve such questions one needs to develop the skill to understand complicated passages in one go.

What are your future plans?

I want to be pursue MBA and thereafter build a career in the corporate sector.

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