You will encounter logical reasoning questions on the LSAT. This involves reading a passage and choosing the best answer from the choices. Here are a few for you to try.
Logical reasoning sample questions
All worker bees are female and have no sense of themselves as individuals. They instead live to further the welfare of the queen and her hive as a whole, helping her to lay eggs and raising her offspring. This means that workers spend their lives helping the queen to pass on her genetic traits and fail to pass on their own genes to offspring.
Which one of the following statements, if true, most seriously weakens this argument?
(A) All the bees in a hive are related to one another; the workers are all sisters and the queen is their mother. There is no need for workers to pass on their own genes because they are furthering their mother's line.
(B) When a hive loses its queen, some workers develop the ability to lay eggs; these unfertilized eggs can hatch only into male drones.
(C) A bee colony has only one queen at a time. When a new queen hatches in a hive, she immediately seeks out all other queens and tries to kill them or drive them out.
(D) If a beekeeper can catch the queen from a swarm, he can install her in a beehive, and the entire swarm of worker bees will immediately move into the hive with her.
(E) Queen bees mate once in their lives and store sperm from this mating to fertilize all their worker eggs. Male drones hatch from unfertilized eggs.
Some scholars claim that myths explain natural phenomena; for example, the myth of Zeus's casting lightning bolts from heaven helped the Greeks explain an unexplainable event. Others argue that myths are a way in which people explore psychological phenomena, such as a son's feelings toward his mother. If these various scholars are correct, then all myths can be interpreted both as explanations of natural events and explorations of psychology.
This argument is most vulnerable to criticism on the grounds that it
(A) draws a conclusion about myths that has already been discounted by experts in the field
(B) takes for granted that the myths of ancient people are relevant today
(C) imposes a modern, western sensibility on the myths of pre-modern people from a variety of cultures
(D) criticizes scholars who insist that one or the other interpretation of myths must be correct
(E) assumes that what is true of myths in general must also be true of each individual myth
Schools today have decreased funding and time for art, music, and drama classes, citing lack of money and a need to spend more time on academic subjects. This is tragic. Because of these decisions, the next generation of citizens will be a mass of automatons with heads stuffed full of facts and no appreciation of or talent for artistic pursuits.
The conclusion drawn in this argument follows logically if which one of the following is assumed?
(A) In the absence of school arts programs, many parents sign their children up for extracurricular classes in art and music.
(B) Schools with strong arts programs tend to produce students who also excel in academic subjects.
(C) Many people who never studied art, music, or drama in school nevertheless have gone on to become famous artists.
(D) If people are not exposed to the arts at school, they will never learn about them.
(E) The primary purpose of schools is to teach students the academic subjects they will need to flourish in the business world.
Columnist: Our town has lost its minor league baseball team. Another town in a different state offered to build a large, modern baseball stadium if the team would move there; our town has refused to update our stadium for years. This is a catastrophic loss to our town and will severely damage the local economy.
Which one of the following, if true, most strongly supports this argument?
(A) Building a new baseball stadium would have cost the town several million dollars that it would be unlikely to recoup through revenues generated by the baseball team.
(B) The baseball team's presence generated millions of dollars of revenue for the town every year by attracting out-of-town visitors who spent money on hotels, restaurants, and other goods and services.
(C) The current baseball stadium was already larger than necessary, and the bleachers were never more than half-full during home games.
(D) The baseball team would have gone to any city that was willing to grant its demands for new facilities, and it had no real loyalty to the town that had been its home for 20 years.
(E) In a local referendum, only a small minority of town citizens voted to spend the money necessary to build a new baseball stadium.
Answers
B. When a hive loses its queen, some workers develop the ability to lay eggs; these unfertilized eggs can hatch only into male drones.
E. assumes that what is true of myths in general must also be true of each individual myth
D. If people are not exposed to the arts at school, they will never learn about them.
B. The baseball team's presence generated millions of dollars of revenue for the town every year by attracting out-of-town visitors who spent money on hotels, restaurants, and other goods and services.