Free LSAT practice test — four 35-minute sections, 2 LR + 1 RC 🇺🇸

8 original practice questions written by Myndaq in the LSAT style. They are not taken from this mock paper or from official past papers. Try each one, then open the answer.

1. Question 1Logical ReasoningOne correct answer

   Columnist: The Hallowell Foundation has been accused of steering its arts grants toward applicants who are already well known. The foundation's director insists that the selection panel reads every application with the applicant's name removed. But the director has herself received grants from three similar foundations, so her assurance should be disregarded.

   The reasoning in the columnist's argument is most vulnerable to criticism on the grounds that it

   1. A. treats a claim as false merely because that claim has not yet been proven true
   2. B. dismisses a claim solely by citing a circumstance of the person who makes it, rather than by addressing the claim itself
   3. C. takes for granted that the members of the selection panel are all equally qualified to judge applications
   4. D. concludes that a practice is improper from the mere fact that the practice is unpopular
   5. E. relies on the testimony of a source whose expertise in the relevant field has not been established
   Show answer and explanation

   Answer: B

   The director makes a factual claim about procedure: names are removed before panels read applications. The columnist offers nothing about that procedure. He offers only a fact about the director's own grant history and treats it as sufficient reason to set her statement aside. That is an attack on the speaker's situation instead of on what she said, which is exactly what (B) describes.

   (A) is wrong because the columnist does not rest on a lack of proof; he rests on the director's circumstances. (C) names an assumption the argument never needs, since panel competence is not at issue. (D) is wrong because nothing in the argument turns on the popularity of the grant program. (E) reverses the structure: the columnist rejects testimony rather than relying on it.

2. Question 2Logical ReasoningOne correct answer

   The Rasmussen Library will replace half of its reference desk hours with an online chat service staffed by the same librarians. Because a librarian working the chat service can handle roughly three times as many patron questions per hour as a librarian at the desk can, the library will end up answering more patron questions than it does now.

   The argument depends on assuming which one of the following?

   1. A. Most patrons of the library prefer using an online chat service to speaking with a librarian in person.
   2. B. A librarian using the chat service can answer complicated questions as accurately as a librarian at the reference desk can.
   3. C. Some questions that patrons bring to the library currently go unanswered because librarians do not have time for them.
   4. D. Operating the chat service will cost the library no more per hour than staffing the reference desk costs.
   5. E. The librarians who move to the chat service will require no training beyond what they have already received.
   Show answer and explanation

   Answer: C

   The conclusion is about output: more questions answered than at present. Extra capacity raises output only if there is unmet demand for it. Suppose instead that librarians already answer every question patrons bring. Then tripling the rate at which questions can be handled would leave the total answered unchanged, and the conclusion would fail. Because denying (C) destroys the argument, (C) is assumed.

   (A) and (B) concern patron preference and answer quality, neither of which the conclusion mentions. (D) concerns cost, which is irrelevant to how many questions get answered. (E) is not needed: the stated three-to-one rate already accounts for however the librarians perform, trained or not.

3. Question 3Logical ReasoningOne correct answer

   Marine biologist: The kelp beds off the Torrey coast have thinned steadily over the past decade. Sea urchin numbers there have tripled during that same decade, and sea urchins graze on kelp. The urchins are therefore the principal cause of the thinning.

   Which one of the following, if true, most strengthens the marine biologist's argument?

   1. A. Sea otters, which prey on sea urchins, have become scarce along the Torrey coast over the past decade.
   2. B. Sea urchins off the Torrey coast feed on several species of algae in addition to kelp.
   3. C. Along a neighboring stretch of coast where urchin numbers held steady, kelp density was unchanged over the same decade even though water temperatures there rose as much as they did off Torrey.
   4. D. Kelp beds have thinned in several regions where sea urchins are entirely absent.
   5. E. The kelp beds off the Torrey coast were thinner a century ago than they are today.
   Show answer and explanation

   Answer: C

   This is a causal argument built on one correlation, so it is strengthened most by evidence that rules out the leading rival cause. Warming water is the obvious rival. (C) supplies a comparison case in which the temperature rise occurred but the urchin increase did not, and there the kelp held steady. That makes the urchins, not the warming, the factor that tracks the thinning.

   (A) explains why urchin numbers rose but says nothing about whether urchins caused the kelp loss. (B) slightly weakens the case, since urchins eating other algae means less pressure on kelp. (D) actively weakens it by showing kelp thins without urchins. (E) compares a distant period and bears on neither the decade in question nor the cause.

4. Question 4Logical ReasoningOne correct answer

   Editorial: Since the Fairholm district began requiring students to hand in their phones at the start of every class, average test scores across the district have risen by four points. Districts elsewhere that want higher scores should adopt the same requirement.

   Which one of the following, if true, most weakens the editorial's argument?

   1. A. Some parents objected to the requirement because they wanted to be able to reach their children during the school day.
   2. B. The four-point rise was measured on the same standardized test that the district had used in previous years.
   3. C. Fairholm's requirement applies at every grade level rather than only in its high schools.
   4. D. During the same school year, Fairholm hired enough additional teachers to cut average class size from 31 students to 22.
   5. E. Students in Fairholm spend more time using phones outside of school than students in neighboring districts do.
   Show answer and explanation

   Answer: D

   The recommendation rests on the assumption that the phone requirement is what produced the four-point rise. (D) supplies a substantial alternative cause operating in the very same year: a drop of nine students per class is a change large enough to lift scores on its own. Once that rival explanation is on the table, the rise no longer supports adopting the phone requirement elsewhere.

   (A) reports an objection about convenience, not about what caused the scores to move. (B) removes a possible objection and so mildly helps the argument. (C) describes the scope of the requirement without bearing on cause. (E) concerns out-of-school behavior, which the requirement never governed.

5. Question 5Logical ReasoningOne correct answer

   Every apprentice at the Lindholm boatyard who completed the joinery course also completed the rigging course. No apprentice who completed the rigging course was assigned to the paint shop. Ivo is an apprentice at the Lindholm boatyard, and he was assigned to the paint shop.

   If the statements above are true, which one of the following must also be true?

   1. A. Ivo completed the rigging course but did not complete the joinery course.
   2. B. Apprentices assigned to the paint shop are not permitted to enroll in the joinery course.
   3. C. Ivo did not complete the joinery course.
   4. D. More apprentices completed the rigging course than completed the joinery course.
   5. E. Every apprentice who completed the joinery course was later assigned to the rigging crew.
   Show answer and explanation

   Answer: C

   Chain the conditionals. Completing joinery leads to completing rigging, and completing rigging leads to not being assigned to the paint shop. So completing joinery leads to not being in the paint shop. Ivo was assigned to the paint shop, so by contraposition he did not complete joinery. That is (C).

   (A) adds a false half: the second premise also rules out Ivo's having completed rigging. (B) shifts from what happened to what is permitted, which the statements never address. (D) overreaches: the first premise makes the rigging group include the joinery group, but the two could be exactly the same size. (E) confuses completing the rigging course with being assigned to the rigging crew, a group never mentioned.

6. Question 6Logical ReasoningOne correct answer

   If the archive's humidity controls had failed at any point last year, the vellum manuscripts stored there would show warping. None of those manuscripts shows any warping. So the humidity controls did not fail at any point last year.

   The pattern of reasoning in the argument above is most closely parallel to that in which one of the following?

   1. A. If the kiln reached 1,200 degrees, the glaze set. The kiln did reach 1,200 degrees, so the glaze set.
   2. B. If a recipe calls for saffron, the dish is expensive to prepare. This dish is expensive to prepare, so its recipe calls for saffron.
   3. C. If Marcus had trained every morning, he would have finished the race. Marcus did not train every morning, so he did not finish the race.
   4. D. If the ferry ran late, the connecting bus was missed, and if that bus was missed, the meeting was missed. The ferry ran late, so the meeting was missed.
   5. E. If Delia took the coastal road, she drove past the lighthouse. Delia did not drive past the lighthouse, so she did not take the coastal road.
   Show answer and explanation

   Answer: E

   The original has the form: if P then Q; not Q; therefore not P. It denies the consequent to reject the antecedent, and it is valid. (E) matches exactly, with P as taking the coastal road and Q as driving past the lighthouse.

   (A) affirms the antecedent instead, a different valid form. (B) affirms the consequent, which is invalid. (C) denies the antecedent, also invalid. (D) links two conditionals and then affirms the first antecedent, so it neither shares the original's single conditional nor its negative direction.

7. Question 7Reading ComprehensionOne correct answer

   Historians of commerce long assumed that systematic reasoning about risk began with the mathematical treatment of probability in the seventeenth century. Recent work on the marine insurance contracts drawn up in Mediterranean ports between 1350 and 1500 complicates that assumption. The notaries who recorded these contracts did not calculate odds, and no surviving document contains anything resembling a computation of expected loss. Yet the premiums they set vary in ways that track hazard closely: a winter crossing cost roughly twice what the same route cost in summer, cargo carried in older hulls was charged more than identical cargo in new ones, and routes passing near ports known for privateering carried the steepest surcharges of all.

   Kaltmann has argued that this pattern amounts to an implicit theory of risk, one embodied in pricing rather than in prose. Her critics reply that consistent pricing need reflect no theory whatever; underwriters may simply have copied whatever premiums the previous season's contracts recorded, adjusting only when losses forced them to. Kaltmann concedes that copying explains why premiums on a given route stayed stable for decades. But copying, she observes, cannot explain the first premium ever set for a newly opened route, and those opening figures already reflect the same hazards that later contracts would go on to confirm.

   Which one of the following most accurately expresses the main point of the passage?

   1. A. Marine insurance premiums recorded between 1350 and 1500 were set with little regard for the hazards of particular voyages.
   2. B. Kaltmann's critics have shown that copying rather than reasoning accounts for the pricing of late medieval marine insurance.
   3. C. Probability theory could not have developed in the seventeenth century without the record-keeping practices of Mediterranean notaries.
   4. D. Pricing evidence from late medieval marine insurance has been offered as showing that risk was reasoned about systematically well before probability theory, and the force of that evidence is disputed.
   5. E. Notaries working in Mediterranean ports kept records that were considerably more detailed than those kept by merchants elsewhere in Europe.
   Show answer and explanation

   Answer: D

   The passage sets up a received view, introduces contract pricing as evidence against it, attributes an interpretation of that evidence to Kaltmann, records a rival interpretation from her critics, and closes with her reply. A main point statement has to cover both the claim and the dispute about it, which (D) does.

   (A) contradicts the first paragraph, where premiums track hazard closely. (B) awards the argument to the critics, whereas the passage gives Kaltmann the last and unrebutted word. (C) asserts a dependence the passage never claims. (E) compares notarial records with merchants' records, a comparison the passage never makes.

8. Question 8Reading ComprehensionOne correct answer

   Historians of commerce long assumed that systematic reasoning about risk began with the mathematical treatment of probability in the seventeenth century. Recent work on the marine insurance contracts drawn up in Mediterranean ports between 1350 and 1500 complicates that assumption. The notaries who recorded these contracts did not calculate odds, and no surviving document contains anything resembling a computation of expected loss. Yet the premiums they set vary in ways that track hazard closely: a winter crossing cost roughly twice what the same route cost in summer, cargo carried in older hulls was charged more than identical cargo in new ones, and routes passing near ports known for privateering carried the steepest surcharges of all.

   Kaltmann has argued that this pattern amounts to an implicit theory of risk, one embodied in pricing rather than in prose. Her critics reply that consistent pricing need reflect no theory whatever; underwriters may simply have copied whatever premiums the previous season's contracts recorded, adjusting only when losses forced them to. Kaltmann concedes that copying explains why premiums on a given route stayed stable for decades. But copying, she observes, cannot explain the first premium ever set for a newly opened route, and those opening figures already reflect the same hazards that later contracts would go on to confirm.

   In the passage, Kaltmann's remark about the first premium ever set for a newly opened route functions primarily to

   1. A. concede that her critics' explanation accounts for most of the surviving contracts
   2. B. identify evidence that her critics' alternative explanation leaves unexplained
   3. C. show that premiums charged on newly opened routes exceeded those charged on established routes
   4. D. suggest that underwriters consulted mathematicians before opening a new route
   5. E. establish that losses on newly opened routes occurred more often than underwriters had anticipated
   Show answer and explanation

   Answer: B

   The critics explain hazard-tracking prices as copying from earlier contracts. An opening premium on a route with no earlier contracts has nothing to copy, so the critics' mechanism cannot apply, yet the figure still tracks hazard. Kaltmann raises the case precisely because it falls outside their explanation, which is (B).

   (A) misplaces the concession: she concedes only that copying explains stability within a route, and she makes no claim about what share of contracts that covers. (C) states a comparison between new and established routes that the passage does not make. (D) invents a consultation nowhere mentioned. (E) concerns the frequency of losses, whereas her point concerns how the opening price was arrived at.