LSAC LSAT-TEST Online Practice Questions and Exam Preparation

LSAC LSAT-TEST Online Questions & Answers

• Question 591:

  Editorial: Medical schools spend one hour teaching preventive medicine for every ten hours spent teaching curative medicine, even though doctors' use of the techniques of preventive medicine cuts down medical costs greatly. Therefore, if their goal is to make medicine more cost-effective, medical schools spend insufficient time teaching preventive medicine.

  Which one of the following is an assumption on which the editorial's argument depends?

  A. Preventive medicine makes use of technologies that are lower in initial cost than the technologies used within the practice of curative medicine.
  B. Every hour devoted to the teaching of preventive medicine reduces medical costs by 10 percent or more.
  C. Medical schools could increase their total number teaching hours.
  D. Improvements in doctors' use of the techniques of curative medicine would only increase overall medical costs.
  E. The time required to teach preventive medicine thoroughly is greater than one hour for every ten that are now spent teaching curative medicine.
  E. The time required to teach preventive medicine thoroughly is greater than one hour for every ten that are now spent teaching curative medicine.

  ---

  When we see an Assumption question, we think "there's something missing, and it's required for this argument to work. "Let's look for a gap between the evidence and conclusion. In medical school, learning how to cure medical problems outweighs learning how to prevent them 10 to 1, even though preventive medicine cuts down on medical costs. The editorial concludes that if the schools are interested in making medicine more cost-effective, then they're not spending enough time on preventive medicine. But even though time spent teaching curative medicine outweighs preventive 10 to 1, where does the editorial establish that this ratio is not sufficient to adequately teach preventive medicine? It doesn't. Sure, the 10 to 1 ratio sounds disproportionate, but maybe the subject of preventive medicine can be taught just fine in the time currently allotted. If so, then the editorialist would be wrong to argue that cost-conscious medical schools spend insufficient time teaching preventive medicine. E. must therefore be assumed: In a fairly long-winded manner, all it says is that the 10 to 1 ratio is not sufficient to teach preventive medicine well. If it was sufficient (the Denial Test), then the argument would make no sense.

• Question 592:

  Researchers have found that people who drink five or more cups of coffee a day have a risk of heart disease 2.5 times the average after corrections are made for age and smoking habits. Members of the research team say that, on the basis of their findings, they now limit their own daily coffee intake to two cups.

  Which one of the following, if true, indicates that the researchers' precaution might NOT have the result of decreasing their risk of heart disease?

  A. The study found that for people who drank three or more cups of coffee daily, the additional risk of heart disease increased with each extra daily cup.
  B. Per capita coffee consumption has been declining over the past 20 years because of the increasing popularity of soft drinks and also because of health worries.
  C. The study did not collect information that would show whether variations in level of coffee consumption are directly related to variations in level of stress, a major causal factor in heart disease.
  D. Subsequent studies have consistently shown that heavy smokers consume coffee at about 3 times the rate of nonsmokers.
  E. Subsequent studies have shown that heavy coffee consumption tends to cause an elevated blood-cholesterol level, an immediate indicator of increased risk of heart disease.
  C. The study did not collect information that would show whether variations in level of coffee consumption are directly related to variations in level of stress, a major causal factor in heart disease.

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  Although the question stem doesn't make it obvious, this is a weaken question. We're asked to find the choice which, if true, suggests that cutting down on coffee might not lower the risk of heart disease. Given that coffee drinkers tend to get heart disease more often than the average, it might seem prudent to cut down on coffee. It certainly appears as if the researchers have interpreted the evidence to mean that coffee drinking causes increased risk of heart disease. But for all we know, the connection between coffee drinking and heart disease could be a coincidence. Maybe there's something about coffee drinkers other than their coffee drinking that makes them more likely to get heart disease. C. provides such a factor: stress. It tells us that we don't know what the relationship between coffee consumption and stress is, and that stress definitely causes heart disease. IfC.is true, it's just as likely that coffee is not causally related to heart disease at all, but is simply correlated with the real cause, stress. If that's the case, cutting down on the java may very well not decrease the risk of heart disease as the researchers seem to expect.

• Question 593:

  In a school function ceremony, seven students, Amy, Bob, Chad, Dom, Elisa, Fischer, and Grant have to deliver their performances in seven consecutive slots, not necessarily in the order of their given names. The following information is known about the order in which the students perform: Chad performs immediately before Dom Grant performs sometime after Chad There are exactly two performances made between the performances of Amy and Elisa

  If it is known that Bob performs before Fischer, for which of the following positions of Amy can the exact order of all the performers be determined?

  A. Second
  B. Third
  C. Fourth
  D. Fifth
  E. None of the seven positions
  E. None of the seven positions

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  Here, we need to find the position of Amy such that the exact order of all the performers can be determined; and to answer that we have another piece of information ?Bob performs before Fischer. We know that there are exactly two performers between A and E. However, there are two possibilities: A performs before E OR E performs before A. Thus, we have multiple scenarios as shown below: Case I: A in the 1st place

  

  Here, clearly, C and D can be either 2nd and 3rd, or 5th and 6th without violating any conditions given. Also, in each case, B can come before F. Thus, the exact order cannot be determined. Thus, A cannot be in the 1st slot (though the answer options did not have this slot at all, we still did this to show why the 1st slot is not a viable option).

  Case II: A in the 2nd place

  

  Here, there are multiple possibilities for B, F and G: B in 1st slot, F in 6th and G in 7th B in 1st slot, G in 6th and F in 7th

  Thus, the exact order cannot be determined.

  Case III: A in the 3rd place

  

  Here, clearly, C and D can be either 1st and 2nd, or 4th and 5th. Thus, the exact order cannot be determined. Case IV: A in the 4th place

  

  Here too, the positions of C and D cannot be uniquely determined. In fact, the position of E is also doubtful. Thus, the exact order cannot be determined. Case V: A in the 5th place

  

  Here, the position of G cannot be uniquely determined. Thus, the exact order cannot be determined. Case VI: A in the 6th place

  

  Here too, the positions of C and D cannot be uniquely determined. Thus, the exact order cannot be determined. Case VII: A in the 7th place

  

  Here too, the positions of C and D cannot be uniquely determined. Thus, the exact order cannot be determined.

  General

  Let us denote the seven slots using the numbers 1 through 7 as shown below:

  

  We need to fill in the names of the performers in each slot depending on the information provided.

  Let us name the performers Amy, Bob, Chad, Dom, Elisa, Fischer, and Grant as A, B, C, D, E, F and G.

  Let us look at the information given in the question stem and see what we have got:

  1.

  Since Chad performs immediately before Dom, we can write "CD" as an element implying that there is no one else performing between them.

  2.

  Since Grant performs sometime after Chad, and Chad and Dom are consecutive performers, Grant must perform after Dom as well. Thus, we can represent the information as shown below:

  The "..." above implies that there could be none or at least 1 performer between D and G.

  3.

  There are exactly two performers between Amy and Elisa. This information can be represented as shown below:

  

  

  Thus, we see that the above information is NOT sufficient to assign even one of the performers to his/her corresponding slot number. This implies that there would possibly be multiple solutions to the arrangements of the performers. Thus, in order to solve the questions, we would need to use the information given in the questions.

• Question 594:

  Tragic dramas written in Greece during the fifth century B.C. engender considerable scholarly debate over the relative influence of individual autonomy and the power of the gods on the drama's action. One early scholar, B. Snell, argues that Aeschylus, for example, develops in his tragedies a concept of the autonomy of the individual. In these dramas, the protagonists invariably confront a situation that paralyzes them, so that their prior notions about how to behave or think are dissolved. Faced with a decision on which their fate depends, they must reexamine their deepest motives, and then act with determination. They are given only two alternatives, each with grave consequences, and they make their decision only after a tortured internal debate. According to Snell, this decision is "free" and "personal" and such personal autonomy constitutes the central theme in Aeschylean drama, as if the plays were devised to isolate an abstract model of human action. Drawing psychological conclusions from this interpretation, another scholar, Z. Barbu, suggests that "[Aeschylean] drama is proof of the emergence within ancient Greek civilization of the individual as a free agent." To A. Rivier, Snell's emphasis on the decision made by the protagonist, with its implicit notions of autonomy and responsibility, misrepresents the role of the superhuman forces at work, forces that give the dramas their truly tragic dimension. These forces are not only external to the protagonist; they are also experienced by the protagonist as an internal compulsion, subjecting him or her to constraint, even in what are claimed to be his or her "choices." Hence all that the deliberation does is to make the protagonist aware of the impasse, rather than motivating one choice over another. It is finally a necessity imposed by the deities that generates the decision, so that at a particular moment in the drama necessity dictates a path. Thus, the protagonist does not so much "choose" between two possibilities as "recognize" that there is only one real option. Lesky, in his discussion of Aeschylus' play Agamemnon, disputes both views. Agamemnon, ruler of Argos, must decide whether to brutally sacrifice his own daughter. A message from the deity Artemis has told him that only the sacrifice will bring a wind to blow his ships to an important battle. Agamemnon is indeed constrained by a divine necessity. But he also deeply desires a victorious battle: "If this sacrifice will lose the winds, it is permitted to desire it fervently," he says. The violence of his passion suggests that Agamemnon chooses a path ?chosen by the gods for their own reasons ?on the basis of desires that must be condemned by us, because they are his own. In Lesky's view, tragic action is bound by the constant tension between a self and superhuman forces.

  Which one of the following summaries of the plot of a Greek tragedy best illustrates the view attributed to Rivier in the passage?

  A. Although she knows that she will be punished for violating the law of her city, a tragic figure bravely decides to bury her dead brother over the objections of local authorities.
  B. Because of her love for her dead brother, a tragic figure, although aware that she will be punished for violating the law of her city, accedes to the gods' request that she bury his body.
  C. After much careful thought, a tragic figure decides to disobey the dictates of the gods and murder her unfaithful husband.
  D. A tragic figure, defying a curse placed on his family by the gods, leads his city into a battle that he realizes will prove futile.
  E. After much careful thought, a tragic figure realizes that he has no alternative but to follow the course chosen by the gods and murder his father.
  D. A tragic figure, defying a curse placed on his family by the gods, leads his city into a battle that he realizes will prove futile.

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  Any of these plots, we can infer, could be retold and reinterpreted by Snell, Rivier, or Lesky, and they'd come out differently each time based on each scholar's viewpoint. What's important is that we focus on the right scholar ?Rivier, in this case ?and recall his overall point of view (essentially that the gods pull the strings, and that humans simply wake up to the course that has been divinely set for them). Armed with that summary, option [After much careful thought, a tragic figure...] shouldn't be a close call. It's all there: the course chosen by the gods, the long deliberative process, the eventual realization by the protagonist.

• Question 595:

  North American eastern white cedars grow both on cliff faces and in forests. Cedars growing on exposed cliff faces receive very few nutrients, and rarely grow bigger than one-tenth the height of cedars growing in forests, where they benefit from moisture and good soil. Yet few eastern white cedars found in forests are as old as four hundred years, while many on cliff faces are more than five hundred years old.

  Which one of the following, if true, most helps to explain the difference in the ages of the cedars on cliff faces and those in forests?

  A. The conditions on cliff faces are similar to those in most other places where there are few tall trees.
  B. In areas where eastern white cedars grow, forest fires are relatively frequent, but fires cannot reach cliff faces.
  C. Trees that are older than a few hundred years start to lose the protective outer layer of their bark.
  D. The roots of cedars on cliff faces lodge in cracks in the cliff, and once the roots are so large that they fill a crack, the tree is unable to grow any taller.
  E. Eastern white cedar wood is too soft to be used for firewood or modern buildings, but it is occasionally used to make furniture.
  B. In areas where eastern white cedars grow, forest fires are relatively frequent, but fires cannot reach cliff faces.

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  The essence of the paradox about the two sets of cedars goes like this: One set grows in a hospitable forest locale and another grows on hardscrabble cliff faces, yet the cliff cedars seem to be thriving better -- in general they're older than the forest cedars. Some outside factor must account for the difference in longevity, and you might not have predicted forest fires but certainly should not have been surprised to encounter [In areas where eastern white...]. That forests are far more susceptible to tree-killing blazes than are cliffs would readily account for the longer life of the cliff cedars.

• Question 596:

  Because of increases in the price of oil and because of government policies promoting energy conservation, the use of oil to heat homes fell by 40 percent from 1970 to the present, and many homeowners switched to natural gas for heating. Because switching to natural gas involved investing in equipment, a significant switch back to oil in the near future is unlikely.

  The prediction that ends the passage would be most seriously called into question if it were true that in the last few years

  A. the price of natural gas to heat homes has remained constant, while the cost of equipment to heat homes with natural gas has fallen sharply
  B. the price of home heating oil has remained constant, while the cost of equipment to heat homes with natural gas has risen sharply
  C. the cost of equipment to heat homes with natural gas has fallen sharply, while the price of home heating oil has fallen to 1970 levels
  D. the cost of equipment to heat homes with oil has fallen sharply, while the price of heating with oil has fallen below the price of heating with natural gas
  E. the use of oil to heat homes has continued to decline, while the price of heating oil has fallen to 1970 levels
  D. the cost of equipment to heat homes with oil has fallen sharply, while the price of heating with oil has fallen below the price of heating with natural gas

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  Calling into question the prediction just means that you have to weaken the conclusion of the argument. The prediction in this case is that it is unlikely that people will switch back to oil (from natural gas) in the near future. What evidence does the author base this prediction on? The fact that many consumers switched to natural gas between 1970 and the present, and that such a switch to natural gas involved investing in equipment. The author must be assuming that investing in natural gas equipment makes it too expensive or too hard to switch back to using oil. The correct answer choice, then, should do something to attack this assumption. D. does this by telling you that the cost of oil heating equipment has fallen sharply (reducing the cost of switching back to oil) and the price of oil has fallen below the price of gas (making it cheaper to heat your home using oil). Again, you don't need to find an answer choice that suggests that consumers will definitely switch back to oil. You just need the one that calls into question the prediction that they won't.

• Question 597:

  It is proposed to allow the sale, without prescription, of a medication that physicians currently prescribe to treat the common ear inflammation called "swimmer's ear." The principal objection is that most people lack the expertise for proper self-diagnosis and might not seek medical help for more serious conditions in the mistaken belief that they have swimmer's ear. Yet in a recent study, of 1,000 people who suspected that they had swimmer's ear, 84 percent had made a correct diagnosis --- a slightly better accuracy rate than physicians have in diagnosing swimmer's ear. Thus, clearly, most people can diagnose swimmer's ear in themselves without ever having to consult a physician.

  Which one of the following, if true, most undermines the conclusion?

  A. Cases in which swimmer's ear progresses to more serious infections are very rare.
  B. Most of those who suspected incorrectly that they had swimmer's ear also believed that they had other ailments that in fact they did not have.
  C. Most of the people who diagnosed themselves correctly had been treated by a physician for a prior occurrence of swimmer's ear.
  D. Physicians who specialize in ear diseases are generally able to provide more accurate diagnoses than those provided by general practitioners.
  E. For many people who develop swimmer's ear, the condition disappears without medical or pharmaceutical intervention.
  C. Most of the people who diagnosed themselves correctly had been treated by a physician for a prior occurrence of swimmer's ear.

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  In this Weaken the Argument question, the argument is not about whether or not medicine to treat "swimmer's ear" should be sold. Instead, the conclusion is that most people can clearly diagnose swimmer's ear in themselves better than physicians can. The evidence is the study: Of the 1000 people sampled, 84 percent made a correct diagnosis, a rate higher than the correct diagnosis rate by physicians. Since the conclusion is reached on the basis of the study, we know to weaken the argument means to question the study itself. The correct answer will make it more likely that the sample does not accurately represent all people who suspect they have swimmer's ear. Option [Most of the people who diagnosed themselves...] does this -- most of the people were able to recognize the signs of "swimmer's ear" because they had already consulted a physician about it. If that's true, we'd be far less likely to believe that the study results support the conclusion that most people can diagnose the condition without consulting a doctor.

• Question 598:

  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 describes the contents of the passage?

  A. The author describes an artistic phenomenon; introduces one interpretation of this phenomenon; proposes an alternative interpretation and then supports this alternative by criticizing the original interpretation.
  B. The author describes an artistic phenomenon; identifies the causes of that phenomenon; illustrates some of the consequences of the phenomenon and then speculates about the significance of these consequences.
  C. The author describes an artistic phenomenon; articulates the traditional interpretation of this phenomenon; identifies two common criticisms of this view and then dismisses each of these criticisms by appeal to an example.
  D. The author describes an artistic phenomenon; presents two competing interpretations of the phenomenon; dismisses both interpretations by appeal to an example and then introduces an alternative interpretation.
  E. The author describes an artistic phenomenon; identifies the causes of the phenomenon; presents an argument for the importance of the phenomenon and then advocates an attempt to recreate the phenomenon.
  A. The author describes an artistic phenomenon; introduces one interpretation of this phenomenon; proposes an alternative interpretation and then supports this alternative by criticizing the original interpretation.

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  The challenge here is that all of the choices look so similar ?although the fact that each begins with the exact same phrase should make life easier. You can cross out, with your pencil, the words "The author describes an artistic phenomenon" from all 5 choices, thus rendering what's left easier to compare. Looking back at our Roadmap, we might conceive that what the author does with the "phenomenon" (of the artists' artistic revolution) is to: cite an interpretation, rebut it, and counter it with evidence. The testimony of Picasso and Braque and their friends certainly does qualify as "criticizing the original interpretation."

• Question 599:

  Goswami: I support the striking workers at Ergon Foods. They are underpaid. The majority of them make less than $20,000 per year.

  Nordecki: If pay is the issue, I must disagree. The average annual salary of the striking workers at Ergon Foods is over $29,000.

  Goswami and Nordecki disagree over the truth of which one of the following statements?

  A. The average annual salary at Ergon Foods is over$29,000.
  B. Pay is the primary issue over which the workers are striking at Ergon Foods.
  C. It is reasonable to support striking workers who are underpaid.
  D. The striking workers at Ergon Foods are underpaid.
  E. It was unreasonable for the workers at ErgonFoods to go on strike.
  D. The striking workers at Ergon Foods are underpaid.

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  This is a Point-at-Issue question. Goswami concludes that the striking workers are underpaid. His evidence is that the majority of the workers make less than $20,000 per year. Nordecki counters that if pay is the issue then he disagrees with Goswami. Disagrees about what? In order to answer that question, look at the evidence Nordecki uses to disagree with Goswami. The evidence that he offers relates directly to the pay of the workers: he says that the average salary is $29,000. So Nordecki must be disagreeing with Goswami on the issue of whether the workers are underpaid.

• Question 600:

  Legal theorist: It is unreasonable to incarcerate anyone for any other reason than that he or she is a serious threat to the property or lives of other people. The breaking of a law does not justify incarceration, for lawbreaking proceeds either from ignorance of the law or of the effects of one's actions, or from the free choice of the lawbreaker. Obviously mere ignorance cannot justify incarcerating a lawbreaker, and even free choice on the part of the lawbreaker fails to justify incarceration, for free choice proceeds from the desires of an agent, and the desires of an agent are products of genetics and environmental conditioning, neither of which is controlled by the agent.

  The claim in the first sentence of the passage plays which one of the following roles in the argument?

  A. It is offered as a premise that helps to show that no actions are under the control of the agent.
  B. It is offered as background information necessary to understand the argument.
  C. It is offered as the main conclusion that the argument is designed to establish.
  D. It is offered as evidence for the stated claim that protection of life and property is more important than retribution for past illegal acts.
  E. It is offered as evidence for the stated claim that lawbreaking proceeds from either ignorance of the law, or ignorance of the effects of one's actions, or free choice.
  C. It is offered as the main conclusion that the argument is designed to establish.

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  The question stem tells us we need to identify the purpose of the first sentence, so we need to put it in context. Standing alone, the first sentence could be a conclusion or evidence, but the rest of the stimulus makes its purpose clear. Sentence1 essentially says that the only reason to lock someone up is to prevent them from harming others/others' property. Sentence 2 rules out lawbreaking alone as a justification, and sentence 3 elaborates on this point. So the last two sentences support the first by excluding another justification for locking people up. Therefore, the first sentence must be the conclusion.