Sample LSAT Practice Questions
Real questions from official LSATs. Pick an answer to see whether you're right and why.
Question 1
From PrepTest 123
Consumer: The latest Connorly Report suggests that Ocksenfrey prepackaged meals are virtually devoid of nutritional value. But the Connorly Report is commissioned by Danto Foods, Ocksenfrey's largest corporate rival, and early drafts of the report are submitted for approval to Danto Foods' public relations department. Because of the obvious bias of this report, it is clear that Ocksenfrey's prepackaged meals really are nutritious.
The reasoning in the consumer's argument is most vulnerable to criticism on the grounds that the argument
Question 2
From PrepTest 146
Archaeologist: The earliest evidence of controlled fire use in Europe dates to just 400,000 years ago. This casts doubt on the commonly held view that, because of Europe's cold winter climate, mastery of fire was a necessary prerequisite for humans' migration there.
Which one of the following is an assumption required by the argument?
Question 3
From PrepTest 146
A six-month public health campaign sought to limit the spread of influenza by encouraging people to take precautions such as washing their hands frequently and avoiding public places when they experience influenza symptoms. Since the incidence of influenza was much lower during those months than experts had predicted, the public evidently heeded the campaign.
Which one of the following, if true, most strengthens the argument?
Question 4
From PrepTest 141
Hine's emerald dragonflies are an endangered species that live in wetlands. The larvae of these dragonflies can survive only in the water, where they are subject to predation by several species including red devil crayfish. Surprisingly, the dragonfly populations are more likely to remain healthy in areas where red devil crayfish are present than in areas without red devil crayfish.
Which one of the following, if true, most helps to explain the surprising fact?
Question 5
From PrepTest 123
Economist: Every business strives to increase its productivity, for this increases profits for the owners and the likelihood that the business will survive. But not all efforts to increase productivity are beneficial to the business as a whole. Often, attempts to increase productivity decrease the number of employees, which clearly harms the dismissed employees as well as the sense of security of the retained employees.
Which one of the following most accurately expresses the main conclusion of the economist's argument?
Question 6
From PrepTest 141
Clearly, a democracy cannot thrive without effective news media. After all, a democracy cannot thrive without an electorate that is knowledgeable about important political issues, and an electorate can be knowledgeable in this way only if it has access to unbiased information about the government.
The argument's conclusion is properly inferred if which one of the following is assumed?
Question 7
From PrepTest 141
Worldwide, more books were sold last year than in any previous year. In particular, there were more cookbooks sold. For the first time ever, most of the cookbooks sold were not intended for beginners. Indeed, more cookbooks than ever were purchased by professional cooks. However, one of the few books available on every continent is a cookbook written for beginners, entitled Problem-Free Cooking.
Which one of the following is most strongly supported by the information above?
Question 8
From PrepTest 123
A cup of raw milk, after being heated in a microwave oven to 50 degrees Celsius, contains half its initial concentration of a particular enzyme, lysozyme. If, however, the milk reaches that temperature through exposure to a conventional heat source of 50 degrees Celsius, it will contain nearly all of its initial concentration of the enzyme. Therefore, what destroys the enzyme is not heat but microwaves, which generate heat.
Which one of the following, if true, most seriously weakens the argument?
Anatomy of a Logical Reasoning (LR) question
The LSAT has four sections split between two types: Logical Reasoning (LR) and Reading Comprehension (RC). Let's look at a real LR question:
Most of the students who took Spanish 101 at the university last semester attended every class session. However, each student who received a grade lower than B minus missed at least one class session.
Which one of the following statements about the students who took Spanish 101 at the university last semester can be properly inferred from the information above?
-
a
At least some of the students who received a grade of A minus or higher attended every class session.
-
b
Most, if not all, of the students who missed at least one class session received a grade lower than B minus.
-
c
Most of the students received a grade higher than B minus.
-
d
At least one student who received a grade of B minus or higher missed one or more class sessions.
-
e
More than half of the students received a grade of B minus or higher.
This question, like every LR question, has three parts:
- A brief passage
- A question about it
- Five answer choices
Let's look at each of these parts in more detail. We'll start with the brief passage. We call this passage the stimulus.
The stimulus
The stimulus is a series of claims that you'll need to analyze. Sometimes, like in the example above, the claims are simply presented as a set of facts.
Most of the students who took Spanish 101 at the university last semester attended every class session. However, each student who received a grade lower than B minus missed at least one class session.
This stimulus is a set of facts.
Which one of the following statements about the students who took Spanish 101 at the university last semester can be properly inferred from the information above?
-
a
At least some of the students who received a grade of A minus or higher attended every class session.
-
b
Most, if not all, of the students who missed at least one class session received a grade lower than B minus.
-
c
Most of the students received a grade higher than B minus.
-
d
At least one student who received a grade of B minus or higher missed one or more class sessions.
-
e
More than half of the students received a grade of B minus or higher.
The claims in the stimulus won't always be a neutral set of facts, though. Often, they'll form an argument designed to lead to a certain conclusion, like below:
Marketing consultant: Last year I predicted that LRG's latest advertising campaign would be unpopular with customers and ineffective in promoting new products. But LRG ignored my predictions and took the advice of a competing consultant. This season's sales figures show that sales are down and LRG's new products are selling especially poorly. Thus, the advertising campaign was ill conceived.
This stimulus is an argument.
The marketing consultant's reasoning is most vulnerable to criticism on the grounds that
-
a
it takes for granted that LRG's sales would not have been lower still in the absence of the competitor's advertising campaign
-
b
it fails to consider that economic factors unrelated to the advertising campaign may have caused LRG's low sales figures
-
c
it takes for granted that in LRG's industry, new products should outsell established products
-
d
it takes for granted that the higher sales of established products are due to effective advertising
-
e
it confuses a condition necessary for increasing product sales with a condition that will ensure increased sales
Here, the stimulus presents us with an argument meant to persuade us that, in the marketing consultant's words, "the advertising campaign was ill conceived."
Speaking of the marketing consultant, note how this stimulus begins by telling us who's speaking. In LSAT terminology, we call that source "the author." Sometimes the author is not identified. Other times, as in this example, the stimulus will identify the author to give us extra context and help us understand the scenario.
Occasionally, the stimulus will even have multiple authors, like this:
Taylor: Researchers at a local university claim that 61 percent of the information transferred during a conversation is communicated through nonverbal signals. But this claim, like all such mathematically precise claims, is suspect, because claims of such exactitude could never be established by science.
Sandra: While precision is unobtainable in many areas of life, it is commonplace in others. Many scientific disciplines obtain extremely precise results, which should not be doubted merely because of their precision.
This stimulus has multiple authors.
The statements above provide the most support for holding that Sandra would disagree with Taylor about which one of the following statements?
-
a
Research might reveal that 61 percent of the information taken in during a conversation is communicated through nonverbal signals.
-
b
It is possible to determine whether 61 percent of the information taken in during a conversation is communicated through nonverbal signals.
-
c
The study of verbal and nonverbal communication is an area where one cannot expect great precision in one's research results.
-
d
Some sciences can yield mathematically precise results that are not inherently suspect.
-
e
If inherently suspect claims are usually false, then the majority of claims made by scientists are false as well.
In this case, the authors' names don't give us any clues about what to expect. The names are there to make it clear that this is a conversation between two people and to let us reference each set of claims.
To sum up, the stimulus is always a set of claims that we're required to analyze. It might be a series of neutral facts or it might be an argument designed to persuade. It might have an implicit author, a single named author, or two named authors. In every case, though, our task is going to be to assess those claims in some way.
How we go about assessing them depends on the question stem.
The question stem
The question stem poses a question about the stimulus. It's the thing we need to answer.
The test can pose a wide range of questions about a stimulus, but they all have one thing in common: they test you, in different ways, on how a set of claims can (or can't) be used to support a given conclusion. Sometimes, the question stem will have you drawing conclusions yourself, like in the Spanish 101 example, where the question stem asks us what can be "properly inferred" (a fancy way of saying "concluded") from the facts in the stimulus.
Most of the students who took Spanish 101 at the university last semester attended every class session. However, each student who received a grade lower than B minus missed at least one class session.
Which one of the following statements about the students who took Spanish 101 at the university last semester can be properly inferred from the information above?
This question stem asks what we can infer from the stimulus.
-
a
At least some of the students who received a grade of A minus or higher attended every class session.
-
b
Most, if not all, of the students who missed at least one class session received a grade lower than B minus.
-
c
Most of the students received a grade higher than B minus.
-
d
At least one student who received a grade of B minus or higher missed one or more class sessions.
-
e
More than half of the students received a grade of B minus or higher.
Other times, when the stimulus features an argument, it's the author who's attempting to draw some conclusion from a set of supporting claims. In these cases, your job will be to scrutinize the reasoning underlying that argument.
For example, in the question with the marketing consultant, we're asked to describe how the argument is "vulnerable to criticism," or in other words, how the author uses flawed reasoning to reach her conclusion.
Marketing consultant: Last year I predicted that LRG's latest advertising campaign would be unpopular with customers and ineffective in promoting new products. But LRG ignored my predictions and took the advice of a competing consultant. This season's sales figures show that sales are down and LRG's new products are selling especially poorly. Thus, the advertising campaign was ill conceived.
The marketing consultant's reasoning is most vulnerable to criticism on the grounds that
This question stem asks for a flaw in the argument.
-
a
it takes for granted that LRG's sales would not have been lower still in the absence of the competitor's advertising campaign
-
b
it fails to consider that economic factors unrelated to the advertising campaign may have caused LRG's low sales figures
-
c
it takes for granted that in LRG's industry, new products should outsell established products
-
d
it takes for granted that the higher sales of established products are due to effective advertising
-
e
it confuses a condition necessary for increasing product sales with a condition that will ensure increased sales
When the stimulus has multiple authors, the question stem often asks us to use their claims to draw a conclusion about what, precisely, the authors agree or disagree on. In the example with Taylor and Sandra, we're asked to identify the point of disagreement.
Taylor: Researchers at a local university claim that 61 percent of the information transferred during a conversation is communicated through nonverbal signals. But this claim, like all such mathematically precise claims, is suspect, because claims of such exactitude could never be established by science.
Sandra: While precision is unobtainable in many areas of life, it is commonplace in others. Many scientific disciplines obtain extremely precise results, which should not be doubted merely because of their precision.
The statements above provide the most support for holding that Sandra would disagree with Taylor about which one of the following statements?
This question stem asks for a point of disagreement between two authors.
-
a
Research might reveal that 61 percent of the information taken in during a conversation is communicated through nonverbal signals.
-
b
It is possible to determine whether 61 percent of the information taken in during a conversation is communicated through nonverbal signals.
-
c
The study of verbal and nonverbal communication is an area where one cannot expect great precision in one's research results.
-
d
Some sciences can yield mathematically precise results that are not inherently suspect.
-
e
If inherently suspect claims are usually false, then the majority of claims made by scientists are false as well.
All told, there are 22 different types of question stem. They all boil down to questions about how certain claims support certain conclusions.
Once we've read the question stem and considered the claims in the stimulus, all that remains is to choose one of the answer choices.
The answer choices
Every LR question has five answer choices listed from (A) to (E).
On some questions, it might seem like more than one of the answer choices are correct. Don't be fooled. There is only ever one right answer. At the end of the day, our job is to find the right answer and avoid getting duped by the other four.
Sometimes two choices look equally correct because they're saying the same thing in different words. If that's the case, you can cross them both off. Since there's only one correct answer, any duplicates must be wrong.
More often, though, you'll find that two attractive answer choices will have different meanings. When that's the case, it means you've misread or misunderstood something, either in the stimulus or in the answer choices themselves. Reread each one and get clear on what, precisely, they're saying. Consider whether you're adding any of your own assumptions to make either of the answer choices "work." Reading with precision and being aware of your assumptions are the best ways to tell a wrong answer from a right one. If that still doesn't work, you should simply make a call: choose one of the answers, flag the question, and move on. Wasting a lot of time on a question is worse than getting it wrong. Come back to the question after you've answered everything else. Sometimes a fresh look is enough to catch a key detail you'd missed the first time around.
Frequently asked questions
Yes. Every question on this page comes from an officially released LSAT (PrepTests 123, 141, and 146), written by LSAC, the organization that makes the test. The explanations are 7Sage's.
The LSAT has four 35-minute multiple-choice sections of about 25 questions each: two Logical Reasoning sections, one Reading Comprehension section, and one unscored experimental section that can be either kind. Your score, from 120 to 180, comes from the three scored sections. There's also an unscored writing sample, LSAT Argumentative Writing, that you take separately.
Two kinds: Logical Reasoning, where you analyze a short argument, and Reading Comprehension, where you answer questions about a longer passage. Logic Games was dropped in August 2024. Within each kind, questions fall into recognizable types, like flaw, strengthen, and main point. See every Logical Reasoning question type and every Reading Comprehension question type.
The free mini-diagnostic gives you five more questions and an estimated score. A free full-length practice test gives you the whole test, timed. And 7Sage's explanation library covers questions from every released LSAT.