Free LSAT Practice Questions

by William Steffen

Analytical Reasoning

The questions in this section are based on different scenarios, each with a different set of conditions. The questions are designed to be answered on the basis of what can be logically inferred from the scenario and conditions. Choose the response that most accurately and completely answers each question.

Scenario 1: Educational Background

A few years before he gets arrested for possession with intent to sell narcotics (while naked), a middle-school principal asks a promising young eighth-grader what he wants to be when he grows up. The kid shrugs his shoulders and says, “I dunno. A lawyer?” This kid hasn’t yet put much thought into his education, but it will involve the following conditions:

A. Before gaining admission to exactly one graduate program in English at University M, he gains admission to exactly two New England colleges, X and S. He accepts at one and defers admission for one year.

B. Sometime between working in a lightswitch factory L for four months and taking the English subject test, he also applies to graduate programs at schools P, Q, R, and Y.

C. After completing his education at lightswitch factory L, he works for eight months in a crayon warehouse, J. 

D. Schools X and S do not require SAT scores for undergraduate admission. School X gives grades to its undergraduate students. School S gives “narrative evaluations.”

E. When he applies to graduate programs at schools P, Q, R, and Y, he enters a “0.0” into the box on the application where it asks for his undergraduate GPA. He hopes that the admissions counselor will know to take the extra time to look at his impressive stack of “narrative evaluations.” (Each application costs $60).

Question 1:

At what point in the student’s education will it become “too late” for him to take the LSAT—and the analytical reasoning section of the test in particular?

a. When he sees The Paper Chase for the first time, sometime between L and J.

b. At some point while attending school S, when he first reads what the members of the Cade rebellion meant to do with the lawyers in Henry VI Part II, (Act 4, Scene 2).

c. When he finally graduates from University M and has one more fleeting thought that maybe he could make more money as a lawyer—or at least make more of a difference in the world—than he could with a PhD in English.

d. After graduating from University M, when he sees his middle-school principal selling pickles at a farmer’s market. He wonders if finishing graduate school is anything like finishing prison. He is afraid to approach him and to talk to him, but he kind of does want to tell him that he isn’t disappointed or upset with him. Now that the eighth-grader is older himself, he knows how easy it is to fuck up, or rather how hard it is to do the right thing all the time—even if he finds it pretty easy not to sell meth (naked) from his office during the school day.

Scenario 2: The Graduate

A University professor (esteemed, rotund, “a pillar of the field,” re: white, re: male) has to choose an English graduate student to serve as the next assistant editor of the literary journal that he helped inaugurate decades ago. The professor must choose between the following options:

A. Student R has dinner with the professor on a weekly basis for an entire summer. This is not because student R wants to, but because the professor will not take no for an answer.

B. Student S has a voicemail message on his cellphone from the professor. It is a message where the professor names all of the women he has ever slept with, including the women who gave him blow jobs.

C. Student T once carpooled with the professor to a Shakespeare festival in Canada. At every rest stop on the highway, student T helped the professor cinch his belt in the bathroom. At the hotel, student T also helped the professor with his leg wraps and with his insulin shots.

D. Student U visited the professor in the hospital and held his hand while the professor told the student that he was about to start dialysis, and that meant he only had a year left to live. The professor asked student U to move in with him and to be his care-taker. Student U was offered a chance to live in his house rent-free.

E. The professor asks student V if he would like to visit the professor’s hometown someday: Cortland, New York. He promises that if student V visits Cortland, he will visit Student V’s hometown in return.

F. The professor asks student W to co-edit a book with him. Student W is grateful for the opportunity, but wary of the professor’s misogyny and nepotism.

Question 2:

Assume that the professor lives for eight years after making his proposal to student U. Assume that student R and student W refuse the assistant editor position. Which of the following statements must be true?

A. Students R and S have a strong case for a sexual harassment case and should probably speak to a lawyer, or at the very least a union representative. 

B. Student T and student R should be better about drawing boundaries.

C. Students S and V will wonder if they did something to provoke this behavior from the professor. (They did not).

D. The professor has power over students R, S, T, U, V, and W.

E. Students R, S, T, U, V, and W are all the same person.

Scenario 3: A Wedding Cake Does Not A Marriage Make

Arnold and Willa are planning their wedding and are trying to figure out the seating chart for their guests. At the reception, the following conditions must be met:

A. The bride and groom will be seated at table one. Neither one of them want to get married, though they are both very much in love.

B. Arnold’s parents E and L will be seated at table two. Table two is adjacent to the table where Arnold’s brothers, S and N, will be seated. 

C. Willa’s maid of honor is her best friend, F. F cannot be seated at the same table with Arnold’s brother, N. 

D. Willa’s mother M will be seated at the same table as Arnold’s mother E.

E. Willa’s father G can only attend the wedding if he is brought in his urn.

Question 3:

If Willa is six months pregnant on the day she elopes, which of the following things will Arnold and Willa wish they had known before they decide to call off the wedding altogether and just hire a justice of the peace to marry them in F’s dining room?

A. That Arnold’s parents and brothers still would have liked to have been invited to the elopement.

B. The cost of one month of quality child care, and the number of hours both Arnold and Willa will need to work as English teachers to afford it.

C. That a global pandemic is only six years around the corner.

D. That grandchildren are a gift that cannot make M quit drinking.

E. That cancer will ravage E’s body and brain and turn her back into a child.

Scenario 4: Two Houses, Both Alike In Dignity

Parent D and Parent M build a family together as graduate students. And then one day, still grieving the loss of her own parents, Parent M asks Parent D to move out. She takes their two children, child O and child C, to visit her relatives in England while her husband makes arrangements. The arrangements include finding a new apartment to live in. By the time the children return from the UK, the family has two houses, and the children’s parents are separated. Sort of. Parent D starts a dating profile on Bumble. He is lonely, and he has been lonely for a while. He starts chatting with a woman, Date B, and they go on a date while his wife is in England with the children. Parent D and the woman from Bumble hit it off. It turns out she is lonely too and has also felt neglected in her marriage, but for different reasons. The date ends, but they continue to communicate via text. Parent D forgets that his son’s iPad, which is in England with his son, is sync’d to his iPhone. This means his wife, Parent M, can see all of his text messages with Date B. And even though Parent M knows about his date and wants to respect Parent D’s privacy, now she also knows what Parent D is saying to Date B at all times. 

The following statements are true:

A. As long as child O and child C are in the UK, Parent D and Parent M are separated.

B. Child O takes the iPad with him to the UK. Child O is four at the time.

C. Parent D is not communicating with Parent M, but Parent M is annoyed by the texts coming through on Child O’s iPad.

D. Parent M is aware of the date between Parent M and Date B, and Parent D asked for Parent M’s permission before going on the date.

E. Parent D is communicating with Date B via text, which is sync’d with child O’s iPad.

Question 4:

If parent M is an only child of alcoholics and if Parent D feels obligated to travel three hundred miles every month to visit his mother who has stage four metastatic breast cancer, which of the following text messages, visible on Child O’s iPad, is likely the one that convinces Parent M and Parent D to avoid seeking a divorce attorney at all costs?

A. Parent D to Date B: “How many windows are open on your computer right now? Be honest.”

B. Parent D to Date B: “We should go camping.”

C. Parent D to Date B: “I still have a lot of respect for my ex. I just don’t want to be with someone who doesn’t respect me…I think my marriage is over.”

D. Parent M to Parent D: “How do you turn off the text notifications on your iPad? They’re keeping me up all night!”

E. Parent D to Parent M: “OMFG! Just turn off the goddam iPad! Stop reading my texts!”

Scenario 5: Yo Mama So Dead

You’re thirty-four when you start to worry that the business of losing your mom might also mean losing your dad, Dr. S. You know he’s doing what he thinks is best for her, but taking care of her is taking its toll on him, and you can see that he needs taking care of too:

A. Patient M needs a home health aide. When she gets one, Dr. S has a new knee and has started physical therapy.

B. When the stair lift is installed, Dr. S needs it more than Patient M. This is before Dr. S breaks his hip the first time, but before Patient M fell down two stairs and hit her head because you let her try to sit in the mechanical chair on her own and it wasn’t where it was supposed to be.

C. By the time Patient M moves into an assisted living facility with Dr. S, she has forgotten that her parents are dead. When you tell her that they died two decades ago, she will be angry with you for not informing her sooner. This is well after Dr. S finally has neck surgery and has his Halo apparatus removed. After his case of the hiccups that lasted for days and nearly tore his diaphragm.

D. Patient M sleeps crooked, like a paper crane that has been stepped on, in her wheelchair. After you say goodnight, Dr. S puts her into bed. You imagine him sleeping beside her like a spaghetti sculpture. This is after his second hip fracture and both of his spinal surgeries.

E. You watch Dr. S change her one day and you wonder what kind of life Patient M is living inside that head of hers. Out here, her own mess is running down her legs and into her sweatpants. It is all over her husband’s wedding ring. This is before hospice, but long after the time Dr. S nearly perished from a sepsis infection.

Question 5:

Ultimately, you are grateful for the care he has given her. But your concern that you have lost more than your mother will linger, especially after which of the following events occurs?

A. That time your dad asked you in front of the hospice nurse if you thought her Verzinio medication should stop immediately—the thing keeping her alive and the thing preventing her cancer from claiming her. You answered a shy but definitive, “Yes, it should.” And then he told the nurse to use up the rest of the pills in the box, which may have prolonged her life—and prevented her death—for another few weeks.

B. That time her oncologist was asking her a question and she just fell asleep in the middle of his boring conversation and then he threw up his hands and said, “I think she’s ready to be done,” meaning ready to be done with her treatment probably and her life probably too. And your dad said, “Okay, let’s just get through the holidays first, then we can put her on hospice.” And you thought “holidays” meant Thanksgiving and your dad thought it meant New Year’s and your brother thought it meant Valentine’s Day.

C. That time you were holding her hand and she finally stopped breathing altogether and your dad turned her head slightly and tried to call her back. “M?” And you opened the window because you couldn’t breathe right either but also because you had to let her out somehow.

D. The time Bill died and she called you to tell you he got hit by a car and didn’t make it. The time Taylor, your golden retriever, died and you were asleep but she thought to wake you up because you would want to know. That time she let you stay in the room when Allie, your other rescue, was put down and you passed out with her. The time Anne died, and Kay died, and Grandma, and Grandpa. And Mr. Imagination—from a spider bite. And your neighbor, Mr. Most. Then his wife a few years later. That time she told you about everybody—human or dog—dying.

E. That time, almost three months after the fact, where you can’t make it a day without having a migraine. And the only thing that diminishes the pain—or makes it seem bearable—is thinking about your mom.