LSAT practice questions with answers and explanations

Answer: (D). The evidence is a correlation (walkers take fewer sick days) and the conclusion is causal (more walking would cut sick days). The report never rules out the reverse: healthier people may be the ones who walk. That's (D). (A) is wrong because the conclusion is only about Harlow. (B) is wrong because the conclusion is about more residents walking, not all of them. (C) describes a conditional flaw, but there's no conditional here. (E) brings in costs the report never mentions.

Answer: (B). The premise says certificate → interview. The conclusion runs it backward: interview → certificate. Completing the certificate is sufficient for an interview, but nothing says it's necessary; Dana could have been invited for another reason. That's (B), the classic sufficient-necessary reversal. (A) is a part-whole flaw, but the premise is about every applicant, so it does apply to each one. (C), (D) and (E) describe problems that aren't in the argument.

Answer: (E). Use the negation test. Negate (E): coastal potters did use clay carried from Kel's riverbed. Then the mineral no longer shows where the pot was made, and the argument falls apart, so (E) is required. Negating the others leaves the argument standing: Kel pots going to the coast (A) says nothing about where these pots were made; the mineral needn't be in all of the riverbed clay (B); other inland sites (C) don't matter; and Kel potters could mix in other clay (D) and still make these pots locally.

Answer: (A). The premise is per serving; the conclusion is about total sugar from the cereal. Those match only if people don't eat enough extra servings to cancel the difference. Negate (A): switchers eat so much more that the cut is offset, and the conclusion fails. (B), (C) and (E) are about taste, calories and other ingredients, none of which affect sugar from cereal. (D) matters to Brand Q's sales, but the conclusion is only about people who do switch.

Answer: (C). The chain is: reduces costs → adopted. To prove Proposal 7 will be adopted, you need Proposal 7 → reduces costs, which is (C). (B) reverses the rule (adopted → reduces costs) and proves nothing about Proposal 7. (A) is a weaker version of the same reversal. (D) compares purchase price only; it doesn't guarantee lower costs overall, since tablets bring other costs. (E) is about speed, not cost.

Answer: (C). The argument infers cause from timing. (C) adds a comparison group: similar lakes without the fungus didn't lose frogs, which makes the fungus a better explanation for Pine Lake's loss. (B) offers a different cause, so it weakens. (D) suggests the fungus may be harmless to some frogs, also a weakener. (E) hints the decline could be ordinary variation. (A) is about salamanders and doesn't connect the fungus to fewer frogs.

Answer: (E). The manager credits the move for the sales increase. (E) gives a strong alternative cause that started at the same time: a first-ever half-price sale on bakery items. (A) makes the move a more plausible cause, so it strengthens. (B) is about timing of the move, not sales. (C) is about confusion, which doesn't tell us anything about bakery sales. (D) is about profit, not why sales rose.

Answer: (D). Chain it: debate → Latin → not Greek. By the contrapositive, Greek → not Latin → not debate. Some Greek students are on the chess team, and each of them is not on the debate team, so some chess team members aren't on the debate team (D). (A) and (E) could be false: other chess players might take Latin or debate. (B) could be false too. (C) reverses the first statement.

Answer: (A). Overlap math: 25 + 30 = 55 spots among 40 cafés, so at least 55 − 40 = 15 cafés must be in both groups (A). (D) is wrong because the overlap could be anywhere from 15 to 25. (B) fails when the overlap is 15: that's exactly half of 30, not most. (C) fails because the number of cafés in neither group could be 0. (E) fails when all 25 oat-milk cafés are among the 30 late-night ones.

Answer: (B). The coated glass and the overhangs are reasons; the claim they support is the last sentence, restated in (B). (A) goes too far: “whatever its other merits” shows the critic is setting aside whether the facade is a mistake overall. (C) is a premise. (D) is never claimed. (E) misreads “whatever its other merits” as an accusation.

Answer: (D). Ben doesn't dispute that leaf blowers are loud (so not A). He applies Ana's principle, “loud things should be banned,” to other loud machines and shows it leads somewhere almost no one wants to go. That's (D), reasoning by a parallel case. There's no explanation (B), no compromise (C) and nothing about Ana's motives (E).

Answer: (E). The original is: if A then B; not B; so not A (the valid contrapositive). (E) has the same form. (A) affirms the consequent and (B) denies the antecedent, both invalid. (C) is valid but uses a different form (if A then B; A; so B). (D) starts the same way but its conclusion is about “several games” and is hedged with “probably,” so it doesn't match.

Answer: (A). The principle applies when a defect could cause injury and says to disclose even at a cost to sales. (A) fits both parts. (C) and (D) involve possible injury but endorse silence, so they violate the principle. (B) and (E) involve defects that couldn't cause injury, so the principle doesn't tell us anything about them.

Answer: (B). Police reports and actual thefts can move in different directions if the share of thefts that get reported changes. (B) says reporting got easier and far more victims reported, so reports could double while thefts fell. (A) would push both numbers up, so it doesn't explain the gap. (C) is about recovery, not counts. (D) supports the survey's consistency but explains nothing. (E) is about cars.

Answer: (C). The passage weighs dictionaries (paragraphs 1 and 2) and corpora (3 and 4), finds that each helps but leaves a choice to be made, and concludes in paragraph 5 that judges should own and explain that choice. (C) captures all of it. (A) contradicts paragraph 4. (B) overstates the critics' point that a judge can shop for definitions. (D) is far stronger than anything the author says. (E) is never proposed.

Answer: (E). Paragraph 2 ends by saying dictionaries record the range of uses, “not how often each sense occurs,” and paragraph 3 opens by saying the corpus approach “tries to answer the frequency question directly.” That's (E). (B) is the opposite of the passage, which says dictionaries list many senses, including rare ones. (A) and (C) contradict paragraph 1. (D) is never said.

Answer: (A). Paragraph 4 says frequency data “can inform a judgment about meaning without replacing it,” because the most common sense isn't necessarily the one a legislature intended. That supports (A) and rules out (B) and (E); the author even notes that laws are often written to reach unusual cases. Paragraph 5 says both tools can help, so (C) and (D) are too negative.

Answer: (D). The author grants the method's appeal (it can show frequency and expose overlooked possibilities) but says in paragraph 4 that choosing texts, search terms and classifications can tilt the result. That mix is (D). (A) ignores paragraph 4, and (E) ignores paragraph 5's “none of this means that judges should abandon dictionaries or corpora.” The passage never discusses how quickly courts adopt corpora (C), and the author clearly cares about the issue (B).

Answer: (B). The sentence goes on: a judge “can consult them until one supplies a congenial definition and then cite it as though it settled the question.” Its role is to show how dictionary use can disguise a choice as neutral, which is (B). (E) is the job of the earlier sentence about a dozen senses of “use.” (D) belongs to paragraph 3. (A) overgeneralizes, and (C) is a recommendation the author never makes.

Answer: (C). Paragraph 5 says reference works can expose possibilities and that a court should candidly explain its choice, drawing on “the statute's structure and purpose as well as on linguistic evidence.” (C) does exactly that. (A) is the definition-shopping the critics describe. (B) treats frequency as decisive, which paragraph 4 rejects. (D) contradicts “none of this means that judges should abandon dictionaries or corpora.” (E) still lets a reference work make the decision.