LSAT Logical Reasoning: what it tests and how to approach it

What LSAC says it tests

The arguments come from everyday sources: newspapers, magazines, scholarly writing, ads and informal talk. Few are about law, but LSAC says they mirror legal reasoning in type and complexity. LSAC lists ten skills:

• Recognizing the parts of an argument and how they relate
• Recognizing similarities and differences between patterns of reasoning
• Drawing well-supported conclusions
• Reasoning by analogy
• Recognizing misunderstandings or points of disagreement
• Determining how additional evidence affects an argument
• Detecting assumptions made by particular arguments
• Identifying and applying principles or rules
• Identifying flaws in arguments
• Identifying explanations

Which question types come up in LSAT Logical Reasoning?

LSAC describes skills, not question types. The type names in prep books and courses are their own shorthand, and they line up with LSAC’s skills roughly like this. LSAC doesn’t say how many of each appear on a test.

Do you need formal logic?

Not the vocabulary. LSAC says you don’t need specialized terms such as “ad hominem” or “syllogism”. You do need a university-level grasp of what an argument, a premise, an assumption and a conclusion are, and LSAC points to its SuperPrep books if those are new to you.

Many courses teach conditional reasoning, the “if this, then that” statements and what follows from them, as a topic of its own. That’s a way of studying, not something the test asks you to name.

LSAC’s approach to each question

LSAC’s own advice is short:

• Read the question carefully, and make sure you understand what each answer choice means.
• Don’t pick an answer just because it’s true. It also has to answer the question asked.
• Work only from what the passage says, even if you disagree with it. LSAC says there are no tricks or hidden meanings.

From August 2027

Each Logical Reasoning section grows to 45 minutes with 32 questions, of which 25 count. The unscored questions are mixed in, and LSAC says the skills and question types stay the same.

Where to practice

LawHub’s free drill sets include Logical Reasoning sets with hints and an explanation for every question. Our practice test has 13 Logical Reasoning questions, each with the reason the other four answers miss.