Flaw questions are the most common question type in LSAT Logical Reasoning, and they're the best leverage point in your entire prep. Master them and you also get better at Assumption, Strengthen, and Weaken questions — because all four turn on the same skill: seeing the exact gap between an argument's evidence and its conclusion. This is a practice set. It assumes you already know the basics; if you want the full method, read our Flaw Questions guide first. Here we're going to drill.

Quick Method Refresher

Before you touch the answers on a flaw question, do three things in order:

1. Find the conclusion. It's the claim everything else is trying to support. Ask: what is the author ultimately trying to get me to believe?
2. Find the support. The premises. What facts is the author leaning on?
3. Name the gap out loud. In plain English: "They assume that just because X, Y must be true — but that's not guaranteed." This pre-phrase is the whole game. If you can name the flaw before you read the choices, you'll spot the matching answer in seconds and be immune to the traps.

Flaw answer choices are written in abstract, descriptive language — "takes a necessary condition to be sufficient," "draws a general conclusion from an unrepresentative sample." Your job is to translate your plain-English pre-phrase into that abstract register and find the match.

The Trap Families to Watch

Every wrong flaw answer falls into one of a few buckets. Keep these in mind as you work the set:

• Describes a flaw that isn't there. The choice names a real logical error, but this argument didn't commit it. Tempting because it "sounds like" LSAT-speak.
• Describes a true feature that isn't a flaw. The choice accurately describes something the argument does — but doing that thing isn't actually an error.
• Half-right. The first half matches; the second half describes the wrong element. Read every word.
• Too strong / reversed. The choice overstates what happened or flips the direction of the error.

Now work the six questions below. Cover the explanations. Pre-phrase every one before you look at the choices. Then read the full breakdown — including why each wrong answer is wrong, because that's where the learning actually happens.

Question 1 — The Causal Leap

Reasoning to analyze: A city installed brighter streetlights in its downtown district last year. Over the same period, reported crime in that district fell by 18 percent. The city council concluded that brighter streetlights reduce crime and voted to install them citywide.

Q: The reasoning is most vulnerable to criticism on the grounds that it

(A) relies on a sample that is too small to support a general conclusion
(B) treats the fact that two events occurred together as sufficient to establish that one caused the other
(C) assumes without justification that what is true of one district will be true of the entire city
(D) fails to consider whether brighter streetlights have any drawbacks
(E) confuses a decrease in reported crime with a decrease in actual crime

Pre-phrase: Two things happened at the same time (brighter lights, less crime) and the council jumped to "one caused the other." Classic correlation-to-causation. Something else could have driven the crime drop.

Answer: B. This is the textbook causal flaw — mistaking correlation for causation. (C) is the trap: the argument DOES generalize from one district to the whole city, but that generalization is a separate step and (C) doesn't attack the core causal claim, which is the real weakness. (E) is a genuine possible flaw but is secondary; (B) captures the primary error the question wants. (A) is unsupported — sample size isn't the issue. (D) is irrelevant to whether the conclusion follows.

Question 2 — Necessary vs. Sufficient

Reasoning to analyze: To be admitted to the honors program, a student must maintain a 3.5 grade point average. Priya has a 3.5 grade point average. Therefore, Priya will be admitted to the honors program.

Q: The argument's reasoning is flawed because it

(A) takes a condition that is required for admission to be enough to guarantee admission
(B) presumes that Priya wants to be admitted to the honors program
(C) overlooks the possibility that the grade point requirement could change
(D) generalizes about all students from the case of a single student
(E) fails to establish that a 3.5 grade point average is difficult to achieve

Pre-phrase: The 3.5 is necessary for admission, not sufficient. There could be other requirements. Meeting one requirement doesn't guarantee you get in.

Answer: A. This is the necessary-vs-sufficient error stated cleanly: a required (necessary) condition is treated as a guarantee (sufficient). (B), (C), and (E) all raise things the argument doesn't depend on. (D) describes a generalization the argument never makes — it's about one student, sure, but that isn't the flaw.

Question 3 — The Sampling Problem

Reasoning to analyze: A magazine surveyed its readers about their satisfaction with the publication. Ninety-four percent of respondents said they were satisfied. The editor concluded that the overwhelming majority of the magazine's readers are satisfied with it.

Q: The editor's reasoning is questionable because it

(A) draws a conclusion about all readers based on those readers who chose to respond
(B) assumes that satisfaction is the only relevant measure of a magazine's quality
(C) fails to define what counts as satisfaction
(D) treats the opinions of readers as more reliable than those of experts
(E) ignores the possibility that satisfied readers might later become dissatisfied

Pre-phrase: The people who bothered to respond aren't necessarily representative of all readers. Dissatisfied people may have quit reading or not bothered to reply. Self-selected sample.

Answer: A. This is a self-selection / unrepresentative-sample flaw. The respondents are a subset that may differ systematically from all readers. (B), (D), and (E) are off-topic. (C) is a tempting "vagueness" objection, but the argument's problem isn't the definition of satisfaction — it's who was counted.

Question 4 — Part to Whole

Reasoning to analyze: Each player on the national team is among the best in the country at their individual position. Therefore, the national team is the best team in the country.

Q: The reasoning is flawed in that it

(A) infers that a group has a property merely because each of its members has that property
(B) relies on the testimony of players who may be biased
(C) assumes that individual skill cannot improve over time
(D) fails to consider teams from other countries
(E) presumes that being the best at a position is the same as being popular

Pre-phrase: Great individuals don't automatically make a great team — teams need chemistry, coordination, coaching. This moves from "true of each part" to "true of the whole" without justification.

Answer: A. This is the composition (part-to-whole) flaw. What's true of each member isn't necessarily true of the group. (B), (C), (E) introduce irrelevant concerns. (D) is out of scope — the conclusion is about "the best team in the country," not internationally.

Question 5 — Ad Hominem / Source

Reasoning to analyze: Dr. Feldman argues that the proposed dam will damage the river ecosystem. But Dr. Feldman has received funding from an environmental advocacy group. So we should reject his claim that the dam will damage the ecosystem.

Q: The argument is most vulnerable to the criticism that it

(A) rejects a claim by attacking the person making it rather than the claim's merits
(B) assumes that environmental advocacy groups are never trustworthy
(C) confuses the cause of the dam's construction with its effects
(D) relies on the opinion of someone who lacks relevant expertise
(E) treats one expert's view as representative of all experts

Pre-phrase: They didn't show Feldman is wrong — they attacked his funding source and used that to dismiss his claim. The funding doesn't tell us whether the dam actually damages the ecosystem.

Answer: A. This is a source/ad hominem flaw: dismissing a claim based on facts about the speaker rather than the argument's substance. (B) overstates — the argument doesn't claim advocacy groups are never trustworthy. (D) is reversed; the argument doesn't question Feldman's expertise, it questions his motives. (C) and (E) describe errors not present.

Question 6 — Equivocation / Conflating Terms

Reasoning to analyze: Everyone has a right to speak freely. Since the columnist has a right to speak freely, the newspaper is therefore obligated to publish whatever she writes.

Q: The argument's reasoning is flawed because it

(A) treats the right to express oneself as if it entailed an obligation on others to provide a platform
(B) assumes that all columnists write things worth publishing
(C) fails to consider whether the columnist's statements are accurate
(D) generalizes from one newspaper to all newspapers
(E) confuses what is legal with what is ethical

Pre-phrase: A right to speak freely doesn't mean anyone else has a duty to publish you. The argument slides from "has a right to speak" to "the paper must publish her" — those are different things.

Answer: A. The flaw is conflating a right to do something with an obligation on others to facilitate it. (E) is a tempting near-miss — it names a legal/ethical distinction the argument doesn't actually turn on. (B), (C), (D) each raise concerns the argument doesn't depend on.

How to Review This Set

Getting a question right isn't the goal — understanding why is. For every question you missed, and every one you got right but weren't sure about, do this:

• Re-read the reasoning and name the flaw in your own words without looking at the choices. If you can't articulate it cleanly, you got lucky, not skilled.
• Categorize the flaw. Causal? Necessary/sufficient? Sampling? Part-to-whole? Source/ad hominem? Equivocation? Build a mental (or written) catalog. The LSAT recycles these families endlessly.
• Diagnose your wrong answer. Which trap family did it fall into — a flaw that wasn't there, a true-but-not-a-flaw feature, a half-right, or an overstatement? Spotting your own pattern is how you stop repeating it.
• Rewrite the correct answer in plain English. Prove you understand the abstract phrasing by translating it back to concrete terms.

Where to Get More — and Official Practice

These are original Lovare practice questions, built in the current LSAT style to drill the flaw skill. They're for practice, not scored diagnostics. For official, scored practice, use LSAC's LawHub, which gives you real, licensed PrepTests in the digital interface you'll see on test day. The current LSAT is two scored Logical Reasoning sections and one scored Reading Comprehension section (plus an unscored section), scored 120–180 — flaw questions appear throughout the LR sections, so this skill pays off twice per test.

Drill flaw questions in timed blocks of 8–10, review every one, and keep a running log of the flaw families you keep missing. Volume plus honest review is what moves the score.