LSAC LSAT-TEST Online Practice Questions and Exam Preparation

LSAC LSAT-TEST Online Questions & Answers

• Question 211:

  The village of Vestmannaeyjar, in the far northern country of Iceland, is as bright and clean and up-to-date as any American or Canadian suburb. It is located on the island of Heimaey, just off the mainland. One January night in 1973, however, householders were shocked from their sleep. In some backyards red-hot liquid was spurting from the ground. Flaming "skyrockets" shot up and over the houses. The island's volcano, Helgafell, silent for seven thousand years, was violently erupting! Luckily, the island's fishing fleet was in port, and within twenty-four hours almost everyone was ferried to the mainland. But then the agony of the island began in earnest. As in a nightmare, fountains of burning lava spurted three hundred feet high. Black, baseball-size cinders rained down. An evil-smelling, eye-burning, throat-searing cloud of smoke and gas erupted into the air, and a river of lava flowed down the mountain. The constant shriek of escaping steam was punctuated by ear-splitting explosions. As time went on, the once pleasant village of Vestmannaeyjar took on a weird aspect. Its street lamps still burning against the long Arctic night, the town lay under a thick blanket of cinders. All that could be seen above the ten-foot black drifts were the tips of street signs. Some houses had collapsed under the weight of cinders; others had burst into flames as the heat ignited their oil storage tanks. Lighting the whole lurid scene, fire continued to shoot from the mouth of the looming volcano.

  The eruption continued for six months. Scientists and reporters arrived from around the world to observe the awesome natural event. But the town did not die that easily. In July, when the eruption ceased, the people of Heimaey Island returned to assess the chances of rebuilding their homes and lives. They found tons of ash covering the ground. The Icelanders are a tough people, however, accustomed to the strange and violent nature of their Arctic land. They dug out their homes. They even used the cinders to build new roads and airport runways. Now the new homes of Heimaey are warmed from water pipes heated by molten lava.

  The island's volcano had been inactive for

  A. seventy years
  B. seven thousand years
  C. seven thousand months
  D. seven hundred years
  E. seventy decades
  B. seven thousand years

• Question 212:

  The parliamentarian has often stated that no crime that impacts only a few individual victims deserves capital punishment and, therefore, capital punishment should be awarded only for the rarest of rare crimes that threaten the survival or well-being of the society as a whole. When gruesome crimes involving only one or two victims but generally viewed as deserving capital punishment are cited as possible counterexamples, the parliamentarian justifies his stance by saying that if those crimes deserve capital punishment, they cannot have impacted only a few individual victims.

  The parliamentarian's reasoning contains which one of the following errors?

  A. It contains an unfounded acceptance of a popular opinion.
  B. It relies on the parliamentarian's authority on legal or sociological matters.
  C. It seeks to convince by emotion rather than logic.
  D. It attempts to substantiate a viewpoint by appeal to an unrelated contemplation.
  E. It assumes what it intends to substantiate.
  E. It assumes what it intends to substantiate.

  ---

  Argument construction The parliamentarian states that no crime that impacts only a few victims (for example, murdering only one or two people) deserves capital punishment. Therefore, on the basis of this statement, he concludes that the capital punishment can be awarded only for the rarest of rare crimes that threaten the survival or well-being of the society as a whole.

  Some people object to this conclusion and give as counterexamples such cases in which only one or two people may have been killed but which were so brutal or gruesome as to make the general population think that the murderer deserved to get capital punishment.

  To this objection, the parliamentarian responds that if those cases really deserve capital punishment, then they must have hurt more than a few individual victims.

  Flaw in the argument

  Let's dissect the argument.

  The parliament' principle:

  The parliamentarian decides the applicability of capital punishment for a crime by looking at the number of victims impacted by the crime. If a crime impacts only a few individual victims, then capital punishment should not be awarded.

  The Parliamentarian's Conclusion/Assertion

  Capital punishment should be awarded if and only if a crime impacts the survival or well-being of the whole society.

  How does he support this conclusion? Simply by citing his above principle.

  People's counterexample:

  Gruesome crimes that impact only one or two individual victims but are generally considered to deserve capital punishment.

  The parliamentarian's defense:

  The counterexample doesn't ruffle the parliamentarian at all. Rather, he still uses his principle to respond to it.

  He says that if the gruesome crimes that are offered as a counterexample deserve capital punishment, then they cannot have impacted only a few individuals. (Perhaps he would go down the road of showing how the families or

  neighborhoods of the victims were impacted too, or how those crimes destabilized the society as a whole and therefore merited capital punishment to preserve the well-being of the society etc.)

  What is the flaw in the parliamentarian's reasoning?

  He makes a conclusion based on nothing but his self-proclaimed stance treated as the absolute and incontrovertible truth. When that conclusion is challenged by counterexamples, he again responds by citing his stance, and suggests that if

  those counterexamples are true, then they must adhere to his stance.

  Let's analyze each option one by one.

  Answer choices explanation:

  [It contains an unfounded acceptance of a popular opinion.] This is incorrect. While the parliamentarian does blindly accept his stance to be true ("unfounded acceptance"), the argument does not suggest that this stance is popular and is the

  generally held opinion of most people.

  [It relies on the parliamentarian's authority on legal or sociological matters.] This is incorrect. There is nothing in the argument that suggests that the parliamentarian exercised his authority/power to enforce his opinion.

  [It seeks to convince by emotion rather than logic.] This is incorrect. There is nothing in the argument that suggests that the parliamentarian appealed emotionally to sell his opinion.

  [It attempts to substantiate a viewpoint by appeal to an unrelated contemplation.] This is incorrect. The counter-argument advanced by the parliamentarian (in response to the counterexamples) is relevant to the argument.

  [It assumes what it intends to substantiate.] This is correct. It is in line with the analysis done above. The parliamentarian's conclusion is rather a rephrase of his opinion.

• Question 213:

  For some years before the outbreak of World War I, a number of painters in different European countries developed works of art that some have described as prophetic: paintings that by challenging viewers' habitual ways of perceiving the world of the present are thus said to anticipate a future world that would be very different. The artistic styles that they brought into being varied widely, but all these styles had in common a very important break with traditions of representational art that stretched back to the Renaissance.

  So fundamental is this break with tradition that it is not surprising to discover that these artists ?among them Picasso and Braque in France, Kandinsky in Germany, and Malevich in Russia ?are often credited with having anticipated not just subsequent developments in the arts, but also the political and social disruptions and upheavals of the modern world that came into being during and after the war. One art critic even goes so far as to claim that it is the very prophetic power of these artworks, and not their break with traditional artistic techniques, that constitutes their chief interest and value.

  No one will deny that an artist may, just as much as a writer or a politician, speculate about the future and then try to express a vision of that future through making use of a particular style or choice of imagery; speculation about the possibility of war in Europe was certainly widespread during the early years of the twentieth century. But the forward-looking quality attributed to these artists should instead be credited to their exceptional aesthetic innovations rather than to any power to make clever guesses about political or social trends. For example, the clear impression we get of Picasso and Braque, the joint founders of cubism, from their contemporaries as well as from later statements made by the artists themselves, is that they were primarily concerned with problems of representation and form and with efforts to create a far more "real" reality than the one that was accessible only to the eye. The reformation of society was of no interest to them as artists.

  It is also important to remember that not all decisive changes in art are quickly followed by dramatic events in the world outside art. The case of Delacroix, the nineteenth-century French painter, is revealing. His stylistic innovations startled his contemporaries ?and still retain that power over modern viewers ?but most art historians have decided that Delacroix adjusted himself to new social conditions that were already coming into being as a result of political upheavals that had occurred in 1830, as opposed to other artists who supposedly told of changes still to come.

  Which one of the following most accurately states the main idea of the passage?

  A. Although they flourished independently, the pre-World War I European painters who developed new ways of looking at the world shared a common desire to break with the traditions of representational art.
  B. The work of the pre-World War I European painters who developed new ways of looking at the world cannot be said to have intentionally predicted social changes but only to have anticipated new directions in artistic perception and expression.
  C. The work of the pre-World War I European painters who developed new ways of looking at the world was important for its ability to predict social changes and its anticipation of new directions in artistic expression.
  D. Art critics who believe that the work of some pre-World War I European painters foretold imminent social changes are mistaken because art is incapable of expressing a vision of the future.
  E. Art critics who believe that the work of some pre-World War I European painters foretold imminent social changes are mistaken because the social upheavals that followed World War I were impossible to predict.
  B. The work of the pre-World War I European painters who developed new ways of looking at the world cannot be said to have intentionally predicted social changes but only to have anticipated new directions in artistic perception and expression.

  ---

  In essence, in this passage the author warns us against the "post hoc fallacy" in art: Just because revolutionary artwork came before real-life revolution doesn't mean that the former predicted or influenced or anticipated the latter. His effort to demonstrate that the precedent-shattering art of Picasso et Braque et al. was a response to traditional artistic expression, and not at all a conscious prophecy of world change generally.

• Question 214:

  Many political economists believe that the soundest indicator of the economic health of a nation is the nation's gross-national product (GNP) per capita ?a figure reached by dividing the total value of the goods produced yearly in a nation by its population and taken to be a measure of the welfare of the nation's residents. But there are many factors affecting residents' welfare that are not captured by per capita GNP; human indicators, while sometimes more difficult to calculate or document, provide sounder measures of a nation's progress than does the indicator championed by these economists. These human indicators include nutrition and life expectancy; birth weight and level of infant mortality; ratio of population level to availability of resources; employment opportunities; and the ability of governments to provide services such as education, clean water, medicine, public transportation, and mass communication for their residents.

  The economists defend their use of per capita GNP as the sole measure of a nation's economic health by claiming that improvements in per capita GNP eventually stimulate improvements in human indicators. But, in actuality, this often fails to occur. Even in nations where economic stimulation has brought about substantial improvements in per capita GNP, economic health as measured by human indicators does not always reach a level commensurate with the per capita GNP. Nations that have achieved a relatively high per capita GNP, for example, sometimes experience levels of infant survival, literacy, nutrition, and life expectancy no greater than levels in nations where per capita GNP is relatively low. In addition, because per capita GNP is an averaged figure, it often presents a distorted picture of the wealth of a nation; for example, in a relatively sparsely populated nation where a small percentage of residents receives most of the economic benefits of production while the majority receives very little benefit, per capita GNP may nevertheless be high. The welfare of a nation's residents is a matter not merely of total economic benefit, but also of the distribution of economic benefits across the entire society. Measuring a nation's economic health only by total wealth frequently obscures a lack of distribution of wealth across the society as a whole.

  In light of the potential for such imbalances in distribution of economic benefits, some nations have begun to realize that their domestic economic efforts are better directed away from attempting to raise per capita GNP and instead toward ensuring that the conditions measured by human indicators are salutary. They recognize that unless a shift in focus away from using material wealth as the sole indicator of economic success is effected, the well-being of the nation may be endangered, and that nations that do well according to human indicators may thrive even if their per capita GNP remains stable or lags behind that of other nations

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

  A. "The Shifting Meaning of Per Capita GNP: A Historical Perspective"
  B. "A Defense of Per Capita GNP: An Economist's Rejoinder"
  C. "The Preferability of Human Indicators as Measures of National Economic Health"
  D. "Total Wealth vs. Distribution of Wealth as a Measure of Economic Health"
  E. "A New Method of Calculating Per Capita GNP to Measure National Economic Health"
  C. "The Preferability of Human Indicators as Measures of National Economic Health"

  ---

  The right answer here, as in any Global question, must encompass the passage's topic, scope, and purpose, and only option ["The Preferability of Human Indicators..."]. does so. "Preferability" alludes to the author's persuasive purpose and strong point of view, and the rest of this option is equally on target. Per capita GNP's meaning option ["The Shifting Meaning of..."] is established in 1st paragraph , never shifts, and never gets an "historical" treatment. Option ["A Defense of Per Capita GNP..."] sounds like the title for an interesting passage-length article, but insofar as this passage is concerned option ["A Defense of Per Capita GNP..."] only encompasses mentioned in 2nd paragraph. Even if you take option ["Total Wealth vs. Distribution of..."] is "vs." phrases to stand for per capita GNP and human indicators respectively ?and doing so is a huge distortion of both terms ?option ["Total Wealth vs. Distribution of..."] wrongly casts the whole passage as a balanced debate, failing to signal the author's decided preference. Option ["A New Method of Calculating Per Capita..."] implies that the definition of per capita GNP has changed, and wholly ignores the human indicators that are at the heart of the Scope.

• Question 215:

  Every year since 1986, some of the world's most daring runners have gathered in the desert of Morocco. They are there to take part in one of the most difficult races in the world. The Marathon of the Sands, as it is called, covers over 125

  miles of desert and mountain wilderness. The runners complete the course in fewer than seven days, and they run with their food, clothing, and sleeping bags on their backs. The Marathon of the Sands was founded in 1986 by Patrick Bauer.

  His idea was to give the runners, who come from all over the world, a special kind of adventure. Most of the runners in this race have found that they form deep friendships with the other runners during their days and nights in the desert.

  Facing terrible heat and complete exhaustion, they learn much about themselves and each other.

  For most of the runners, though, the challenge of the race is the main reason for coming.

  On the first day, for example, they run fifteen miles across a desert of sand, rocks, and thorny bushes. Few runners finish the day without blistered and raw feet. They also suffer from a lack of water. (They are allowed less than nine quarts of

  water during each day of the race.) Most of all, they are exhausted when they arrive at the campsite for the night. The second day, the runners are up at 6:00 a.m. Within a few hours, it is 100 degrees F, but the runners do not hesitate. They

  must cover eighteen miles that day. That night, they rest. They must be ready for the next day's run. On the third day, the runners must climb giant sand dunes- the first they have faced. Dust and sand mix with the runners' sweat. Soon their

  faces are caked with mud. After fifteen miles of these conditions, the runners finally reach their next camp.

  The race continues like this for four more days. The fourth and fifth days are the worst. On the fourth day, the runners pass through a level stretch and a beautiful, tree-filled oasis, but then, on this and on the next day, they cross more than

  twenty-one miles of rocks and sand dunes. The temperature soars to 125 degrees F, and many runners cannot make it.

  Helicopters rush fallen runners to medical help. Runners who make it to the end of the fifth day know that the worst is over.

  On the sixth day, heat and rocks punish the racers terribly. In the Valley of Dra, the wind picks up and, as the desert heat is thrust against them with great force, they grow more and more exhausted. The seventh day is the last, with only

  twelve miles to be covered. The dusty, tired, blistered runners set out at daybreak. Near the finish line, children race along with the runners, for everybody has caught the excitement. The ones who have run the whole marathon know they

  have accomplished what most people could not even dream of.

  "During the hard moments," says one contestant who has raced here twice, "I'd think,

  `Why am I here?' Then I'd realize I was there to find my limits."

  What is the main idea of this passage?

  A. The Marathon of the Sands race tests the limits of human endurance.
  B. The runners run at their own pace.
  C. The race causes the strong to stumble and the weak to not finish.
  D. The seventh day is the hardest day of the race.
  E. Every runner runs the race to find their human limits.
  A. The Marathon of the Sands race tests the limits of human endurance.

• Question 216:

  Some people claim that the reason herbs are not prescribed as drugs by licensed physicians is that the medical effectiveness of herbs is seriously in doubt. No drug can be offered for sale, however, unless it has regulatory-agency approval for medicinal use in specific illnesses or conditions. It costs about $200 million to get regulatory-agency approval for a drug, and only the holder of a patent can expect to recover such large expenses. Although methods of extracting particular substances from herbs can be patented, herbs themselves and their medicinal uses cannot be. Therefore, under the current system licensed physicians cannot recommend the medicinal use of herbs.

  Which one of the following most accurately describes the argumentative technique used in the argument?

  A. questioning a claim about why something is the case by supplying an alternative explanation
  B. attacking the validity of the data on which a competing claim is based
  C. revealing an inconsistency in the reasoning used to develop an opposing position
  D. identifying all plausible explanations for why something is the case and arguing that all but one of them can be eliminated
  E. testing a theory by determining the degree to which a specific situation conforms to the predictions of that theory
  A. questioning a claim about why something is the case by supplying an alternative explanation

  ---

  The author's sheer purpose is to counter the claim made in the first sentence by providing another reasonor "an alternative explanation," in option [questioning a claim about...] is words -- why physicians don't prescribe herbs.

• Question 217:

  Bird-watchers explore a forest to see which of the following six kinds of birds -- grosbeak, harrier, jay, martin, shrike, wren -- it contains. The findings are consistent with the following conditions:

  If harriers are in the forest, then grosbeaks are not. If jays, martins, or both are in the forest, then so are harriers If wrens are in the forest, then so are grosbeaks If jays are not in the forest, then shrikes are

  Which one of the following pairs of birds CANNOT be among those birds contained in the forest?

  A. jays, wrens
  B. jays, shrikes
  C. shrikes, wrens
  D. jays, martins
  E. shrikes, martins
  A. jays, wrens

  ---

  Use previous work. We saw, chosen together in our work for questions 7 and 9, "H, J, M, S," which itself demonstrates that the pairs in options [jays, shrikes], [jays, martins], and [shrikes, martins] can in fact be chosen together. Option [shrikes, wrens] is a possible pair. But option [jays, wrens] is impossible, a fact demonstrable through trial. Selecting J requires H (Rule 2), and selecting W requires G (Rule 3), and voila. We have violated Rule 1.

• Question 218:

  A certain gene can be stimulated by chemicals in cigarette smoke, causing lung cells to metabolize the chemicals in a way that makes the cells cancerous. Yet smokers in whom this gene is not stimulated have as high a risk of developing lung cancer from smoking as other smokers do.

  If the statements above are true, it can be concluded on the basis of them that

  A. stimulation of the gene by chemicals in cigarette smoke is not the only factor affecting the risk for smokers of developing lung cancer
  B. nonsmokers have as high a risk of developing lung cancer as do smokers in whom the gene has not been stimulated
  C. smokers in whom the gene has been stimulated are more likely to develop lung cancer than are other smokers
  D. the gene is more likely to be stimulated by chemicals in cigarette smoke than by other chemicals
  E. smokers are less likely to develop lung cancer if they do not have the gene
  A. stimulation of the gene by chemicals in cigarette smoke is not the only factor affecting the risk for smokers of developing lung cancer

  ---

  The question stem identifies this as an Inference question, so you'll probably have to bypass pre-phrasing and, instead, evaluate each choice. The argument introduces a gene that can be turned on by cigarette smoke, leading to cancerous cells. However, smokers with genes that are not turned-on have the same risk of lung cancer as do other smokers. Therefore, there must be something else at play here beside stimulation of the gene.

• Question 219:

  Biologist: Humans have five fingers because we descended from a fish with five phalanges in its fins. Despite our prejudices to the contrary, our configuration of fingers is no more or less useful than several other possible configurations, e.g., six per hand. So, if humans had descended from a fish with six phalanges in its fins and had six fingers on each hand, then we would be just as content with that configuration.

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

  A. Everyone is equally content with our present configuration of fingers.
  B. Humans are never equally content with two things of unequal usefulness.
  C. Humans are always equally content with two things of equal usefulness.
  D. The perceived usefulness of our configuration of fingers is an illusory result of our prejudices.
  E. At least one species of fish had six phalanges in its fins.
  C. Humans are always equally content with two things of equal usefulness.

  ---

  Another Strengthen the Argument question, so let's try to spot an element that needs a bit of extra support. It's a strange argument: The biologist asserts that having five fingers is merely a developmental coincidence, and that we'd have six fingers on each hand if our marine ancestor had six phalanges. Moreover, we'd be just as happy with six fingers as we are with five. This last part is based on the assertion that there's no difference in usefulness between having six fingers and having five. That's a connection that's a bit tenuous, so chances are that our strengthener will relate to this in some way.

  We may ask ourselves: "What if there are other differences that might affect our finger satisfaction?" After all, usefulness is only one possible criteria that might determine how happy we are with our finger configuration (perhaps there areaesthetic concerns as well). The author assumes this is not the case; that is, that no other considerations affect our perceptions in this matter, and that equal usefulness is enough to ensure equal contentedness.

• Question 220:

  Maria: Thomas Edison was one of the most productive inventors of his time, perhaps of all time. His contributions significantly shaped the development of modern lighting and communication systems. Yet he had only a few months of formal

  schooling. Therefore, you do not need a formal education to make crucial contributions to technological advancement.

  Frank: That is definitely not true anymore. Since Edison's day there have been many new developments in technology; to make crucial contributions today you need much more extensive technical knowledge than was needed then.

  Frank's reasoning in his response to Maria is most vulnerable to criticism on the grounds that it

  A. fails to address the possibility that technical knowledge may be acquired without formal education
  B. does not consider whether there have been improvements in formal education since Edison's day
  C. relies on using the term "crucial" differently from the way Maria used it
  D. presumes that no other inventor of Edison's time could have been as productive as Edison
  E. fails to criticize or question any of Maria's statements about Edison
  A. fails to address the possibility that technical knowledge may be acquired without formal education

  ---

  The stem indicates that Frank's reasoning goes off the rails, so let's keep our eye out for the classic flaws. First, Maria's point: Edison contributed greatly in the technological arena with little formal schooling, so evidently formal education is not required to make such contributions. Seems reasonable. But Frank says that's not true anymore; contributing to today's technological environment requires lots more technical knowledge than it did in Edison's day. That may make sense, if not for the scope shift between "formal schooling" and "technical knowledge." Frank's conclusion regarding formal education ("that's not true" means "you do need formal education to contribute") is derived from evidence about the need for technical knowledge. But who says technical knowledge requires formal education? Certainly not Frank.