LSAC LSAT-TEST Online Practice Questions and Exam Preparation

LSAC LSAT-TEST Online Questions & Answers

• Question 41:

  If a petrochemical plant manufactures a range of hazardous chemical products and must therefore follow strict guidelines concerning each of the chemicals may interact with one another on a daily basis. The plant processes five different

  chemicals every week. Three of these chemicals can be processed on any given day. Xenon may be processed any day except for every other Monday and every other Thursday.

  Oxygen, however, can be processed only on Tuesdays and Wednesdays.

  Liquid Hydrogen may be processed on Mondays, Wednesdays and Fridays.

  Sulfur Dioxide can't be processed on Fridays.

  Methane can't be processed on Wednesday.

  Which weekday is most likely to be impossible for 3 chemicals to be processed in one day?

  A. Monday
  B. Tuesday
  C. Wednesday
  D. Thursday
  E. Friday
  D. Thursday

• Question 42:

  Art historian: Great works of art have often elicited outrage when first presented; in Europe, Stravinsky's Rite of Spring prompted a riot, and Manet's Dejeuner sur Vherbe elicited outrage and derision. So, since it is clear that art is often shocking, we should not hesitate to use public funds to support works of art that many people find shocking.

  Which one of the following is an assumption that the art historian's argument requires in order for its conclusion to be properly drawn?

  A. Most art is shocking.
  B. Stravinsky and Manet received public funding for their art.
  C. Art used to be more shocking than it currently vs.
  D. Public funds should support art.
  E. Anything that shocks is art.
  D. Public funds should support art.

  ---

  Assumptions often emerge when a term creeps into the conclusion but isn't mentioned in the evidence. The conclusion is the first and only place where we hear about public funding of art. In order to conclude that public funds should fund shocking art, the author first must assume that public funds should fund art, period -- which makes option [Public funds should...] correct. If option [Public funds should...] is false, then the entire argument is moot. That "art is often shocking" doesn't imply that "most art is shocking"; often and most are not identical concepts. Stravinsky and Manet [Stravinsky and Manet received...] make cameo appearances here solely to act as examples of creators of shocking art; as noted earlier, public funding isn't even mentioned until one sentence later. Option [Art used to be more...] raises a comparison with the past that is not so much as hinted at. As for [Anything that shocks is art.], the author is concerned with the funding of art that shocks, not things that shock in general.

• Question 43:

  The Urban Intelligence Unit publishes an annual Livability Ranking, which ranks 100 American cities for their quality of life based on assessments of urban infrastructure, healthcare, education, crime rates, culture and climate. Yet, this ranking should also consider unemployment rates. After all, if a city is unable to offer work opportunities to a sizeable proportion of its population that needs to work for survival, the quality of life for that proportion would be abysmal. The claim that the Livability Ranking should consider unemployment rates in a city plays which one of the following roles in the argument?

  A. It offers a reason to support the conclusion.
  B. It is an assertion that refutes the conclusion.
  C. It is a principle from which the conclusion is derived.
  D. It is a premise of the argument.
  E. It is a conclusion of the argument.
  E. It is a conclusion of the argument.

  ---

  Argument construction The annual Livability Ranking (published by Urban Intelligence Unit) ranks 100 American cities for their quality of life based on assessments of: urban infrastructure healthcare education crime rates culture сlimate. However, this ranking should also consider unemployment rates. Reason - If a city is unable to offer work opportunities to a sizeable proportion of its population that needs to work for survival, the quality of life for that proportion would be abysmal.

  Understanding the role played by the claim

  Let's dissect the argument.

  The first step in analyzing this argument is identifying the conclusion. To do this, let's find the position for which the argument offers support.

  From the first sentence, we know that Rankings are based on quality of life.

  The same sentence lists six factors that are assessed in determining the quality of life.

  The last sentence begins with the phrase 'After all,' which indicates that the statement that follows it is a premise. This premise, simply put, is that high unemployment rate means poor quality of life.

  When we put this sentence in conjunction with the first sentence, we see that the argument is constructed to support the position stated in the second sentence: "… [the Livability] ranking should also consider unemployment rates."

  Thus, the claim "this ranking should also consider unemployment rates" asked about in the question is the conclusion of the argument.

  Let's analyze each option one by one.

  Answer choices explanation

  [It offers a reason to support the conclusion.] This is incorrect. The claim is not an explanation or a reason-giving-statement.

  [It is an assertion that refutes the conclusion.] This is incorrect. The claim does not refute any statement in the argument.

  [It is a principle from which the conclusion is derived.] This is incorrect. The claim does not act as the source (principle) of any further conclusion.

  [It is a premise of the argument.] This is incorrect. As discussed in the 'Argument Construction' section, the premises of the argument are contained in the first and the third sentences of the argument. The claim is not a premise.

  [It is a conclusion of the argument.] This is correct. It is in-line with our discussion in the 'Argument Construction' section.

• Question 44:

  There are exactly ten stores and no other buildings on Oak Street. On the north side of the street, from west to east, are stores 1, 3, 5, 7, and 9; on the south side of the street, also from west to east, are stores 2, 4, 6, 8, and 10. The stores on

  the north side are located directly across the street from those on the south side, facing each other in pairs, as follows: 1 and 2; 3 and 4; 5 and 6; 7 and 8; 9 and 10. Each store is decorated with lights in exactly one of the following colors:

  green, red, and yellow. The stores have been decorated with lights according to the following conditions:

  No store is decorated with lights of the same color as those of any store adjacent to it.

  No store is decorated with lights of the same color as those of the store directly across the street from it.

  Yellow lights decorate exactly one store on each side of the street.

  Red lights decorate store 4.

  Yellow lights decorate store 5.

  If green lights decorate five stores on the street, then which one of the following statements must be true?

  A. Green lights decorate store 9.
  B. Red lights decorate store 2.
  C. Red lights decorate store 7.
  D. Red lights decorate store 10.
  E. Yellow lights decorate store 8.
  E. Yellow lights decorate store 8.

  ---

  The trick here is to figure out which of the ten stores are the five that will have green lights. On the north side, with store 3 always green, we will have to have a green light in store 7 or 9. (Remember, adjacent greens are prohibited.) It may be smart to draw out both possibilities. And happily the south side is determinable. On the south side, we need three more greens, and clearly they'll have to be stores 2, 6, and10. And with store 4 always red, the requisite (Rule 3) yellow will go to store 8. So here are the two options:

  

  NEW QUESTIONS

• Question 45:

  A college dean will present seven awards for outstanding language research. The awards -- one for French, one for German, one for Hebrew, one for Japanese, one for Korean, one for Latin, and one for Swahili -- must be presented

  consecutively, one at a time, in conformity with the following constraints:

  The German award is not presented first.

  The Hebrew award is presented at some time before the Korean award is presented.

  The Latin award is presented at some time before the Japanese award is presented.

  The French award is presented either immediately before or immediately after the Hebrew award is presented.

  The Korean award is presented either immediately before or immediately after the Latin award is presented.

  If the German award is presented third, which one of the following could be true?

  A. The French award is presented fourth.
  B. The Japanese award is presented fifth.
  C. The Japanese award is presented sixth.
  D. The Korean award is presented second.
  E. The Swahili award is presented fifth.
  B. The Japanese award is presented fifth.

  ---

  Put G in three and try placing the rest of the awards. Begin with F and H, which must stay together (Rule 4). They can't go in four and five, because that wouldn't leave enough room for J to follow the K/L pair. So, F and H must be in the first and second spaces, in either order. There's nothing more for us to deduce, so let's start checking for the choice that could be true.

  The earliest that the Japanese award could be presented is

  -third

  -fourth

  -fifth

  -sixth

  -seventh

  Answer: fifth

  What do we know about the placement of J? It must come after F, H, L, and K. So, with four awards before it, the earliest that J can be presented is fifth.

• Question 46:

  Four boys -- Fred, Juan, Marc, and Paul -- and three girls -- Nita, Rachel, and Trisha -- will be assigned to a row of five adjacent lockers, numbered consecutively 1 through 5, arranged along a straight wall. The following conditions govern the

  assignment of lockers to the seven children:

  Each locker must be assigned to either one or two children, and each child must be assigned to exactly one locker.

  Each shared locker must be assigned to one girl and one boy.

  Juan must share a locker, but Rachel cannot share a locker.

  Nita's locker cannot be adjacent to Trisha's locker. Fred must be assigned to locker 3

  If lockers 1 and 2 are each assigned to one boy and are not shared lockers, then locker 4 must be assigned to

  A. Juan
  B. Paul
  C. Rachel
  D. Juan and Nita
  E. Marc and Trisha
  C. Rachel

  ---

  So lockers 1 and 2 go to boys, yes? And they're not shared? So where--you as a good Logic Games detective must ask are the shared lockers? The only way to insert two non-adjacent (Rule 4) shared lockers is to use lockers 3 and 5. The former is always Fred's, so the latter will be Juan's.

• Question 47:

  A test that examines people on their memory capacity for spatial layouts has placed Jason in the top 1 percentile of all test-takers. We can conclude from this that his memory capacity for things that do not involve spatial layouts will be below average. The conclusion follows logically if which one of the following is assumed?

  A. Jason tried hard to remember spatial layouts.
  B. Jason has a greater proclivity to remember spatial layouts than most people.
  C. It is possible for Jason to improve, through practice and effort, his memory capacity for things that do not involve spatial layouts.
  D. The total memory capacity of the human brain is fixed and equal for all people.
  E. Some people have a greater memory capacity than others.
  D. The total memory capacity of the human brain is fixed and equal for all people.

  ---

  Argument construction A test that examines people on their memory capacity for spatial layouts has placed Jason in the top 1 percentile of all test-takers. We can conclude from this that his memory capacity for things that do not involve spatial layouts will be below average.

  The structure of the argument is:

  Premise: Jason is in the top 1 percentile of all people in his memory capacity for spatial layouts. This means, his 'memory capacity for spatial layouts' (called Ms henceforth for easier reference) is better than 99% of all test-takers. In other words, it is outstanding!

  Conclusion: We can conclude from this that his memory capacity for things that do not involve spatial layouts (called MO ?'o' for other things - henceforth for easier reference) will be below average. Looking at this argument, we see a gap between the premise and conclusion ?being outstanding in MS does not necessarily guarantee that one's MO will be below average. This is the loophole that the correct answer choice will have to plug. The correct answer choice will be one which, when added to the argument's premise, would produce a conclusive argument, that is, an argument with no gaps in its support for the conclusion.

  Let us analyze the options one by one.

  Answer choices explanation [Jason tried hard to remember spatial layouts.] This option is incorrect. When we take this option statement as a premise and combine it with the premise of the argument, does the conclusion logically follow? No. This option statement only provides a plausible reason for why Jason's MS is outstanding. It does not offer any support for the conclusion, which is about his MO.

  [Jason has a greater proclivity to remember spatial layouts than most people.] This option is incorrect. The reasons are similar to the ones discussed in the Option above.

  [It is possible for Jason to improve, through practice and effort, his memory capacity for things that do not involve spatial layouts.] This option is incorrect. The premise in the argument is that Jason's MS is outstanding. The premise offered by this option statement is that it is possible for Jason (through practice and effort) to improve his MO. When these two premises are combined, the conclusion that Jason's MO is below-average does not logically follow. In fact, one wonders how, when it is possible to improve one's MO, can such a definite declaration as the argument's conclusion be made.

  [The total memory capacity of the human brain is fixed and equal for all people.] This option is correct. According to this option statement, the total memory capacity, M, is equal for all people. Also, M is a fixed number. It cannot be increased or decreased. Now, If Jason has higher MS than most people, then it does follow that his MO is lower than most people. Therefore, when this option statement is combined with the argument's premise, there is no gap left in the argument and the conclusion follows logically.

  [Some people have a greater memory capacity than others.] This option is incorrect. If some people have a greater (total) memory capacity than others, then it could be possible that Jason has both an outstanding MS and an outstanding MO, therefore, ending up with an outstanding total memory capacity M as compared to most people. Therefore, when this option statement is combined with the premise, the conclusion does not logically follow.

• Question 48:

  Cats spend much of their time sleeping; they seem to awaken only to stretch and yawn. Yet they have a strong, agile musculature that most animals would have to exercise strenuously to acquire. Which one of the following, if true, most helps to resolve the apparent paradox described above?

  A. Cats have a greater physiological need for sleep than other animals.
  B. Many other animals also spend much of their time sleeping yet have a strong, agile musculature.
  C. Cats are able to sleep in apparently uncomfortable positions.
  D. Cats derive ample exercise from frequent stretching.
  E. Cats require strength and agility in order to be effective predators.
  D. Cats derive ample exercise from frequent stretching.

  ---

  The question stem tells you you'll have to resolve or explain an apparent paradox. Therefore, your first step should have been to clearly identify the paradox. In this case, the stimulus tells you that even though cats mostly just stretch and yawn, they have a strong musculature that most animals would need lots of exercise to acquire. Note the Keyword "Yet" in the last sentence that alerts you to something unexpected coming up. And in fact, it is somewhat surprising that cats can get this musculature when all they do is sleep and stretch and yawn. The correct answer choice will explain how that can be. Option [Cats derive ample exercise from frequent stretching.].is correct because it shows how both parts of this argument could be true. If cats get ample exercise from frequent stretching, and we know from the argument that they do stretch, then that helps to explain how they get the exercise necessary to maintain their agile musculature

• Question 49:

  While historians once propagated the myth that Africans who were brought to the New World as slaves contributed little of value but their labor, a recent study by Amelia Wallace Vernon helps to dispel this notion by showing that Africans introduced rice and the methods of cultivating it into what is now the United States in the early eighteenth century. She uncovered, for example, an 1876 document that details that in 1718 starving French settlers instructed the captain of a slave ship bound for Africa to trade for 400 Africans including some "who know how to cultivate rice." This discovery is especially compelling because the introduction of rice into what is now the United States had previously been attributed to French Acadians, who did not arrive until the 1760s.

  Vernon interviewed elderly African Americans who helped her discover the locations where until about 1920 their forebears had cultivated rice. At the heart of Vernon's research is the question of why, in an economy dedicated to maximizing cotton production, African Americans grew rice. She proposes two intriguing answers, depending on whether the time is before or after the end of slavery. During the period of slavery, plantation owners also ate rice and therefore tolerated or demanded its "after-hours" cultivation on patches of land not suited to cotton. In addition, growing the rice gave the slaves some relief from a system of regimented labor under a field supervisor, in that they were left alone to work independently.

  After the abolition of slavery, however, rice cultivation is more difficult to explain: African Americans had acquired a preference for eating corn, there was no market for the small amounts of rice they produced, and under the tenant system ?in which farmers surrendered a portion of their crops to the owners of the land they farmed ?owners wanted only cotton as payment. The labor required to transform unused land to productive ground would thus seem completely out of proportion to the reward ?except that, according to Vernon, the transforming of the land itself was the point.

  Vernon suggests that these African Americans did not transform the land as a means to an end, but rather as an end in itself. In other words, they did not transform the land in order to grow rice ?for the resulting rice was scarcely worth the effort required to clear the land ?but instead transformed the land because they viewed land as an extension of self and home and so wished to nurture it and make it their own. In addition to this cultural explanation, Vernon speculates that rice cultivation might also have been a political act, a next step after the emancipation of the slaves: the symbolic claiming of plantation land that the U.S. government had promised but failed to parcel off and deed to newly freed African Americans.

  The passage cites which one of the following as a reason that rice cultivation in the context of the tenant system was difficult to explain?

  A. Landowners did not eat rice and thus would not tolerate its cultivation on tenant lands.
  B. Rice was not considered acceptable payment to landowners for the use of tenant lands.
  C. Tenant farmers did not have enough time "after hours" to cultivate the rice properly.
  D. The labor required to cultivate rice was more strenuous than that required for cotton.
  E. Tenant lands used primarily to grow cotton were not suited to rice.
  B. Rice was not considered acceptable payment to landowners for the use of tenant lands.

  ---

  "Cites which one of the following" tells us we've got an Explicit Text question on our hands, and the major clue as to where to find the answer is the phrase "tenant system." This shows up only once, in the middle of 3.Why does rice cultivation not make much sense in the context of the tenant system? Well, the tenant system is described as a system by which farmers paid the owners of their land with the crops they raised. Problem is, owners back then wouldn't take rice as a payment, which clearly highlights the puzzling nature of the African Americans' practice of using these lands to grow rice.

• Question 50:

  Each of seven television programs -- H, J, L, P, Q, S, V -- is assigned a different rank: from first through seventh (from most popular to least popular). The ranking is consistent with the following conditions:

  J and L are each less popular than H.

  J is more popular than Q.

  S and V are each less popular than L.

  P and S are each less popular than Q.

  S is not seventh.

  If V is more popular than Q and J is less popular than L, then which one of the following could be true of the ranking?

  A. P is more popular than S.
  B. S is more popular than V.
  C. P is more popular than L.
  D. J is more popular than V.
  E. Q is more popular than V.
  D. J is more popular than V.

  ---

  Just as in question 2, we can redraw the sketch and incorporate the new if's. This time, it's easiest if we start with the second if and save the V information till later. Given that J falls below L on this question's ranking, the order must be H—L—

  J—Q, followed by S and P. As for V, we already know that V is ranked below L. Now we’re told that V is ranked above Q, meaning that V must fall either just above J or just below it. In other words, the top five are either H—L—V—J—Q or H

  —L—J—V—Q. Correct choice is present in the latter arrangement.

  As expected, the four wrong choices are impossible. If Option [P is more popular than S.] were true then S would be ranked seventh, which it cannot be (Rule 5). In fact, S and P must be ranked sixth and seventh respectively, which makes

  options [S is more popular than V.] and [P is more popular than L.] false statements. Option [Q is more popular than V.] finally, flatly contradicts the question's first if clause.