Hardest Questions Archive
Hardest LSAT practice questions: December 2026
Five hard original questions from December. This set is built around bridges and bases: connect the evidence to the conclusion before you trust it, and always ask what a percentage is a percentage of.
These are original practice questions written for LSATPathway. They are not from any real LSAT and do not predict your score.
Question 1 (Sufficient assumption)
The museum will acquire the manuscript only if the donors approve the purchase. The donors will approve the purchase if the manuscript is authenticated. The manuscript has been authenticated.
Which of the following, if assumed, allows the conclusion that the museum will acquire the manuscript to follow logically?
- The manuscript is the most valuable item the museum has considered acquiring.
- If the donors approve the purchase, the museum will acquire the manuscript.
- If the museum acquires the manuscript, the donors will have approved the purchase.
- The manuscript will be authenticated only if the donors approve the purchase.
- Some authenticated manuscripts are acquired by museums.
Show answer and explanation
Answer: B
Authenticated triggers donor approval, by the second premise. Choice B then carries approval to acquisition, completing the chain. Choice C restates the "only if" premise and goes the wrong way: approval is required for acquisition, not enough for it. Choice D reverses the authentication conditional. Choices A and E add facts that never connect approval to acquisition.
Question 2 (Weaken)
A consultant concluded that switching to a four-day workweek raised productivity at a software firm, because output per employee rose 12 percent in the first quarter after the switch, while output per employee at comparable firms was flat.
Which of the following, if true, most weakens the consultant's conclusion?
- Most employees at the firm say they prefer a four-day workweek.
- The firm's revenue rose in the first quarter after the switch.
- Comparable firms paid higher average salaries than the software firm.
- Just before the switch, the firm laid off the 15 percent of its employees with the lowest output, and it hired no replacements during the quarter measured.
- Output per employee at the firm had been rising slowly for several years before the switch.
Show answer and explanation
Answer: D
Choice D changes who is being averaged. Removing the lowest-output employees raises output per employee on its own, with no gain by anyone who stayed, so the rise need not come from the schedule. Choice E hints at a prior trend but is weaker: a slow earlier rise does not explain a 12 percent jump in one quarter. Choices A and B are consistent with the conclusion, and C is about pay, not output.
Question 3 (Inference)
Some engineers on the project are licensed architects. Every licensed architect on the project has passed the safety examination. No one who has passed the safety examination is assigned to the night shift.
Which of the following must be true?
- Every engineer on the project has passed the safety examination.
- No engineer on the project is assigned to the night shift.
- Some engineers on the project are not assigned to the night shift.
- Some licensed architects on the project are not engineers.
- Every licensed architect on the project is an engineer.
Show answer and explanation
Answer: C
Some engineers are licensed architects, every one of those architects passed the exam, and no exam-passer works nights. So at least those engineers are not on the night shift: choice C. Choice A stretches "some" to "every." Choice B stretches it the same way in the other direction. Choices D and E reverse the "some engineers are architects" statement, which cannot be reversed.
Question 4 (Necessary assumption)
The orchestra plans to balance its budget solely by increasing ticket sales. Ticket prices will not rise, and the number of concerts it performs will not increase. Therefore, the orchestra will balance its budget.
The argument requires the assumption that
- average attendance per concert will increase
- the orchestra's expenses will decrease next season
- ticket sales are currently the orchestra's largest source of revenue
- some other orchestras have balanced their budgets by increasing ticket sales
- donations to the orchestra will not decrease
Show answer and explanation
Answer: A
Revenue from ticket sales is price times concerts times attendance per concert. The plan rules out raising the first two and relies solely on ticket sales, so it has to be true if the conclusion is true: attendance per concert goes up, or sales cannot grow at all. That is choice A. Choice B contradicts "solely." Choices C, D, and E could all be false while the plan still works, so none is required.
Question 5 (Flaw)
The dean announced that the law school now places far more of its graduates into jobs than it did a decade ago, because the share of graduates employed within six months of graduation has risen from 50 percent to 75 percent.
The reasoning is most vulnerable to criticism on the grounds that it
- attacks the dean's credibility instead of addressing the employment figures
- uses the word "jobs" in two different senses
- confuses a necessary condition for employment with a sufficient one
- draws a conclusion about the present from a survey conducted a decade ago
- treats a rise in the percentage of graduates employed as proof that the number of graduates employed rose, without considering the size of the graduating classes
Show answer and explanation
Answer: E
A percentage is only as informative as its base. If the graduating class shrank enough, 75 percent of the smaller class can be fewer employed graduates than 50 percent of the larger one, so "far more graduates" does not follow: choice E. There is no attack on the dean (A), no shifted term (B), no conditional reasoning (C), and no survey in the argument (D).
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