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Identify the main conclusion, premises, intermediate conclusions, background and opposing views in an original argument.
Paper packet. Every task here also exists on screen, where it is checked automatically; answers written on paper are not assessed by Nydus. When you are back at a device, enter your answers there.
Trace what supports what in a short argument, select a faithful statement of the main conclusion, and classify each sentence without confusing the author's position with a view being challenged.
You already distinguish what happened from what someone recommends doing. A recommendation can be the conclusion of an argument, and a factual claim can be a conclusion too. No legal knowledge is needed here. Work from the supplied paragraph rather than from your beliefs about libraries, transport or the arts.
| Term | What it means |
|---|---|
| Main conclusion | The claim the author's reasoning ultimately seeks to establish. |
| Basic premise | A stated reason for which this passage offers no further support. |
| Intermediate conclusion | A claim supported by another claim and then used as a reason for a further conclusion. |
| Background | Context that is not itself offered as support in the analyzed argument. |
| Opposing position | A view attributed to someone else and challenged by the author. |
| Key and distractor | The best answer and a plausible wrong option; a distractor may be true but answer the wrong question. |
An argument offers reasons for accepting a claim. The main conclusion is the claim those reasons ultimately support. A premise supplies a reason; it need not be true in the real world or convincing to count as a premise in the author's argument. First identify the argument the writer actually makes. Whether the reasons establish its conclusion is a later question.
Consider an invented note: 'The rehearsal should move indoors. Rain is forecast during the rehearsal, and the instruments must remain dry.' The recommendation is the conclusion even though it appears first. The forecast and the requirement supply the reasons. Reading the last sentence as the conclusion would reverse the relationship. You can test a candidate by asking whether the remaining claims answer why the author accepts it.
Main-conclusion questions typically offer a correct paraphrase alongside an actual premise, an intermediate conclusion, a different voice or incidental detail, and a statement that changes the claim's scope. All five options can sound relevant. Relevance is insufficient: match the author's destination and preserve exactly how much the author claims. Our five-option items practise that distinction; our typed records make the reasoning visible.
Another way: picture
Imagine boxes connected by arrows labeled 'offered as a reason for.' A basic premise has an outgoing support arrow; an intermediate conclusion both receives and gives support; the main conclusion is the destination. A background box stands outside that chain.
Another way: steps
Read the task. Identify whose argument is being analyzed. Propose its main conclusion. Trace each reason toward it. Separate intermediate conclusions, background and opposed views. Compare all options, then check scope and voice before answering.
As of October 2026, most candidates take the multiple-choice LSAT at a test center. Since August 2026, remote testing has been limited to approved exceptions. Check [LSAC's current delivery guidance](https://www.lsac.org/blog/registration-open-2026-2027-lsat-testing-cycle-plus-update-return-person-testing) rather than assuming that remote testing is freely selectable. Registration, scheduling and accommodation arrangements are separate tasks; follow the instructions for your administration.
The standard test includes a [ten-minute intermission](https://www.lsac.org/lsat/taking-lsat/about-10-minute-intermission) after section two. Approved accommodations may change timing or breaks; practice with the conditions applicable to you and consult [LSAC's accommodations guidance](https://www.lsac.org/lsat/register-lsat/accommodations). These courses remain untimed. Their checkpoints are short learning samples, not full sections or scaled-score predictions.
Each course now includes an optional entry checkpoint, existing lesson exit checks and a separate delayed checkpoint. Keep the delayed material unopened until after studying and a gap, such as a week. The app does not enforce that interval. Record your first answer, confidence and elapsed time in your own review record before feedback. Retakes are useful review, but familiarity makes them different evidence from a first attempt. Use the checkpoint feedback to choose a lesson to revisit, not to label yourself ready or unready for the official exam.
The LSAT subject has eight courses. Begin here for argument structure and review habits; continue through assumptions, evidence, reasoning patterns and inference; then study foundational and advanced reading before mixed practice. Each course has its own entry point, so you can revisit a specific skill without repeating the entire sequence. Related foundations in Arguments in the wild and Reasoning about evidence can help if identifying a conclusion or evaluating a sample is unfamiliar. Formal symbolic logic is not a required starting point.
The current multiple-choice LSAT has four 35-minute sections: two scored Logical Reasoning sections, one scored Reading Comprehension section and an unscored section of either type. Analytical Reasoning games are not part of the current format. Reading Comprehension uses four sets of five to eight questions; a section can contain zero or one comparative set. These courses teach the reasoning with untimed original exercises. A lesson or short drill is not a complete test simulation, and its percentage correct is not an LSAT score. Check [LSAC's test format](https://www.lsac.org/lsat/taking-lsat/test-format) for the official requirements applicable to your administration.
An optional baseline can help choose where to start. Before studying worked examples, try this course's optional entry checkpoint. Its questions are separate from the teaching and delayed checkpoint banks. Record which question demands were unclear and whether the difficulty concerned understanding, method selection or time. You can also start learning immediately; no baseline is required to enter these courses. Keep first attempts separate from corrected attempts, and do not treat a remembered answer as fresh evidence of mastery.
After practice, record the task, the decisive evidence, the strongest rejected option and the error that made it attractive. Useful categories are task confusion, attribution, scope, conditional direction, causal alternative, evidence location and unsupported inference. Revisit one correction the next day, then use another question after roughly a week. These intervals are a practical study schedule, not a validated guarantee of retention. Use the original questions in this subject for learning and review. The current short lesson sets do not constitute full-length test simulations. Our original banks are finite; a new attempt can repeat a case.
LSAT Argumentative Writing is an official unscored requirement, subject to LSAC's rules about an existing approved writing sample. This subject does not include essay drafting, essay grading or a claim of writing proficiency. The supplied argument-plan exercises assess only bounded choices about claims, evidence and revisions. Read [LSAC's writing guidance](https://www.lsac.org/lsat/about/lsat-argumentative-writing) when preparing for that separate requirement.
A question asking for the main conclusion differs from one asking what role a statement plays. For the first, identify the final claim. For the second, locate the specified statement within the whole support structure. Do not answer a role question by repeating the statement's subject matter. 'It discusses attendance' says what it is about, not what it does.
Mark attribution carefully. In 'Critics say the plan wastes money, but the audited savings exceed its cost,' the criticism belongs to the critics. The author presents a response. An option repeating the criticism may closely match the passage while misidentifying the author's view. An author can also concede a point without making it the conclusion. Track endorsement separately from the amount of space devoted to a view.
Because and since often introduce reasons; therefore and so often introduce conclusions. These words help locate a candidate, but they do not establish its role by themselves. Since can describe time. Moreover, a sentence following therefore can be an intermediate conclusion. Ask whether the author uses that sentence to support a further claim.
For example: the roof leaks over the electrical equipment; so that equipment is at risk; therefore the equipment should be moved. The risk claim receives support from the leak and supplies support for moving the equipment. It has both roles. In our records, enter I for this intermediate claim and P for a basic premise. This convention avoids pretending that an intermediate conclusion cannot also be a premise.
Reasons may work together or separately. A date plus a duration can jointly support a deadline; two independent observations may each support a diagnosis. You need not force every paragraph into one straight chain. Identify the actual links before counting premises. A sentence may contain more than one claim; the records in this opening lesson deliberately separate claims into numbered sentences.
An incidental fact can explain the setting without supplying the author's reason. A theater's founding date may be background to a recommendation about ticket access. But dates can be premises in other arguments. Nothing about a topic permanently fixes its role: function depends on how the author uses it here.
Do not remove a stated premise merely because you doubt it. A writer may infer demand from a small survey; the survey remains the offered evidence even if its sample is poor. Similarly, identifying the conclusion does not endorse the proposal. The present task reconstructs the reasoning; later lessons assess assumptions, strengthening, weakening and flaws. Keeping these jobs separate prevents a personal disagreement from becoming an incorrect reading.
Read your proposed conclusion after 'The author offers these reasons to show that ...'. Then identify a specific supporting claim, rather than saying the answer feels central. If the candidate itself supports another claim, follow that next link before deciding that you have reached the main conclusion.
Compare the key words in your answer with the original. Some is not all, probably is not certainly, and should try is not must permanently adopt. A paraphrase may change vocabulary while preserving the claim. It must not add a causal guarantee or replace a tentative recommendation with an absolute rule. Finally, revisit every option: reject each for a particular role or meaning error, not for unfamiliar wording.
Logical Reasoning asks you to analyze short arguments; identifying their parts is one of the skills LSAC names. These exercises are original Nydus practice, not LSAC questions, and their results do not predict an LSAT score. The five-option tasks practise selecting a best answer. The typed role records are an instructional exercise that exposes your analysis, not an additional official test format.
For an untimed first attempt, write a brief conclusion before reading the options. Then cross out each distractor with a reason: premise, intermediate, different voice, background or changed scope. During review, compare that reason with the feedback. A correct guess without a support map is a signal to revisit the method. A wrong answer caused by missing an attribution needs a different repair from one caused by changing some into all.
For a final self-check, compare the supplied support map with the paragraph: locate the author's main claim, the evidence offered, and the link through any intermediate conclusion. Use the feedback to check faithful attribution, preserved scope and accurate support links. Then retry the classification that exposed the error. The automatic role record checks those decisions; no original writing submission or partner review is required.
A premise distractor repeats evidence instead of the claim it supports. An intermediate-conclusion distractor stops the support chain early. A background or opposing-view distractor confuses presence in the passage with endorsement and support. An overstatement changes scope or certainty. When you miss an item, name the exact error before retrying with another passage.
Read the original argument and task.
A Spokane music school has no free rehearsal rooms on Saturdays. Students regularly wait for a room. Therefore, it should trial Sunday rehearsal hours. Which is the main conclusion?
The task asks for the supported recommendation, not for an explanation of why rooms are busy.
Locate what the reasons support.
No free rooms and waiting students support a trial of Sunday hours.
The recommendation receives support from both observations; it does not establish either observation.
Eliminate the four distractors.
A: Saturdays have no free rooms: premise. B: Students wait: premise. C: Trial Sunday hours: candidate. D: Every day needs longer hours: too broad. E: Sunday hours will end all waiting: unsupported guarantee.
An option can accurately repeat evidence while failing to express the main conclusion.
Decide and check the wording.
C preserves both the proposed day and the tentative trial.
The argument recommends trying a response; it does not claim that success is certain.
Read the original passage.
A Newark gallery should keep admission free on Fridays. A donor says this brings no new visitors. Yet visitor surveys identify first-time attendees who say the fee had kept them away. The gallery opened in a former bakery.
The author's recommendation appears before both the objection and the evidence.
Separate the voices and setting.
Author: retain free Fridays. Donor: no new visitors. Former bakery: background.
Neither reporting another person's opinion nor introducing a setting makes it the author's conclusion.
Trace the offered reason.
Surveyed first-time attendees cite the fee as their previous barrier.
This is offered to rebut the donor and support keeping free admission.
Test every option.
A: The gallery was a bakery: background. B: Free Fridays attract nobody new: donor's view. C: Some attendees previously faced a fee barrier: premise. D: Keep free Fridays: main conclusion. E: Eliminate all admission fees forever: broader proposal.
Only one option matches the author's supported recommendation without changing its scope.
Decide and recheck attribution.
D is the answer even though B is explicitly mentioned.
The question asks what the author concludes, not which claim occurs in the passage.
Read the original reasoning.
A Sacramento community garden should trial evening watering. During the current midday watering, much water evaporates before soaking in. Its soil remains dry immediately after watering. The current schedule therefore delivers too little water to the roots. The garden's sign was painted last spring.
This argument includes an inference within the reasoning for its recommendation.
Identify the basic evidence.
Evaporation and dry soil are offered as observations.
The paragraph provides no further argument for these observations.
Locate the supported finding.
The current schedule delivers too little water to roots.
This follows from the observations and then helps justify changing the watering time.
Find the ultimate destination.
The garden should trial evening watering.
The recommendation is supported by the delivery problem; it is not a reason for believing that problem exists.
Eliminate by function and scope.
A: Much water evaporates: premise. B: Too little reaches roots: intermediate conclusion. C: Trial evening watering: main conclusion. D: The sign was painted: background. E: Evening watering always works best: overstatement.
Therefore identifies a conclusion inside the paragraph, but not necessarily its main conclusion.
Record and verify the full structure.
Observations support the delivery finding; the finding supports the trial. Choose C.
The sign belongs outside the support chain, and the recommendation remains a trial rather than a guarantee.
Read the original note.
A Salem choir should issue larger-print song sheets. Several singers cannot read the current sheets at rehearsal distance. The present print size therefore limits participation. The choir rehearses on Mondays.
Work out the direction of support rather than selecting the sentence after therefore automatically.
Name the basic reason and the supported finding.
Reading difficulty supports a participation barrier.
The barrier is inferred from the difficulty, so it is an intermediate conclusion.
Complete the map and isolate the context.
Original practice argument: (1) A neighborhood library in Denver occupies a former fire station. (2) Every evening slot for its meeting room was booked last month. (3) Several groups were turned away for lack of space. (4) Evening demand therefore exceeds the room's capacity. (5) The library should consequently test an additional evening venue. Which statement most accurately expresses the argument's main conclusion?
(1) A Portland repair cooperative publishes a monthly bulletin. (2) Its tool checkout records show repeated unmet requests for drills. (3) Members also report abandoning repairs when drills are unavailable. (4) The cooperative should buy additional drills. (5) Taken together, the records and reports show that access to drills is limiting members' repairs. Complete the method by entering the number of the main-conclusion sentence.
Locate the author's final recommendation.
Track which claim the evidence is offered to support.
Do not choose a fact just because you agree with it.
Follow any intermediate claim onward.
Find the destination of the support chain.
A supported finding can itself serve as a further reason.
Enter the destination's sentence number.
Main conclusion: sentence main.
The paragraph's recommendation is the endpoint of this argument.
(1) A Pittsburgh orchestra rehearses in a converted warehouse. (2) Its conductor says a proposed earlier rehearsal would exclude nobody. (3) The orchestra should reject the proposed time. (4) Several players' work shifts end after that time. (5) The proposal would therefore prevent some current players from attending. Classify every numbered sentence by its role in the author's argument. Enter C for main conclusion, P for a basic premise, I for an intermediate conclusion (supported and then used as a reason), B for background, or O for an opposing position the author challenges. Use I rather than P when both roles apply.
| Sentence | Role code |
|---|---|
| 1 | |
| 2 | |
| 3 | |
| 4 | |
| 5 |
Original practice argument: (1) A neighborhood library in Denver occupies a former fire station. (2) Every evening slot for its meeting room was booked last month. (3) Several groups were turned away for lack of space. (4) Evening demand therefore exceeds the room's capacity. (5) The library should consequently test an additional evening venue. Which statement most accurately expresses the argument's main conclusion?
Original practice argument: (1) A Phoenix theater should keep its captioned Saturday performances. (2) The director claims those performances attract no new visitors. (3) Yet ticket surveys identify many attendees who had never visited before. (4) Those attendees say captions made attendance possible. (5) The captioned performances thus reach people the theater otherwise misses. Which statement most accurately expresses the argument's main conclusion?
Original practice argument: (1) A Portland repair cooperative publishes a monthly bulletin. (2) Its tool checkout records show repeated unmet requests for drills. (3) Members also report abandoning repairs when drills are unavailable. (4) The cooperative should buy additional drills. (5) Taken together, the records and reports show that access to drills is limiting members' repairs. Which statement most accurately expresses the argument's main conclusion?
Original practice argument: (1) Critics say a Boston museum's transcripts are unnecessary. (2) Visitor interviews record difficulty hearing several recordings. (3) The museum should retain the transcripts. (4) In a trial, visitors using transcripts answered more exhibit questions correctly. (5) These findings indicate that transcripts improve access to the exhibit's information. Which statement most accurately expresses the argument's main conclusion?
Original practice argument: (1) A Madison workshop has repeatedly had to cancel orders because its only kiln was full. (2) The workshop should try renting time in another kiln. (3) Its firing schedule also shows no unused slots this month. (4) Firing capacity is therefore constraining production. (5) The workshop's pottery carries a blue maker's stamp. Which statement most accurately expresses the argument's main conclusion?
Original practice argument: (1) A Cleveland archive should replace its handwritten location index. (2) During an audit, many index entries pointed to empty shelves. (3) The index is therefore unreliable for locating documents. (4) A second audit found documents under locations missing from the index. (5) The archive occupies a former post office. Which statement most accurately expresses the argument's main conclusion?
Original practice argument: (1) Some residents say a Tucson seed exchange serves only expert gardeners. (2) Registration records identify many first-time growers. (3) The exchange evidently serves beginners as well as experts. (4) Staff also report frequent requests for introductory planting advice. (5) The exchange should therefore continue offering its beginner sessions. Which statement most accurately expresses the argument's main conclusion?
Original practice argument: (1) A Pittsburgh orchestra rehearses in a converted warehouse. (2) Its conductor says a proposed earlier rehearsal would exclude nobody. (3) The orchestra should reject the proposed time. (4) Several players' work shifts end after that time. (5) The proposal would therefore prevent some current players from attending. Which statement most accurately expresses the argument's main conclusion?
Analyze this workplace memo without a supplied argument map. Enter a sentence number in each part. These response fields are an instructional exercise, not an official LSAT format.
Invented Tampa club memo: (1) Several new members could not locate our meeting room. (2) Our directions should include the floor number. (3) The current directions name only the building. (4) Those directions therefore omit information needed to find the room. (5) The club publishes a quarterly magazine.
Answer:
Answer:
Lesson test: one question per skill, one attempt each, no hints. Your answers are checked when you submit.
(1) A Baltimore maker space has a new logo. (2) Its current booking system should be replaced. (3) Repeated trials assign the same bench to different people at the same time. (4) The booking system thus fails to prevent conflicting reservations. (5) That failure leaves booked users unable to use their assigned benches. Classify every numbered sentence by its role in the author's argument. Enter C for main conclusion, P for a basic premise, I for an intermediate conclusion (supported and then used as a reason), B for background, or O for an opposing position the author challenges. Use I rather than P when both roles apply.
| Sentence | Role code |
|---|---|
| 1 | |
| 2 | |
| 3 | |
| 4 | |
| 5 |
Tomorrow, recall the difference between a basic premise and an intermediate conclusion. Analyze a short editorial: state its conclusion and explain what each reason supports. Check that your paraphrase preserves words such as some, probably and should. Next comes finding an assumption the reasoning needs.
17. Finish an argument map, step 3
The participation barrier supports larger-print sheets; the rehearsal day is background.
The recommendation is the destination, while Monday supplies no reason for changing print size.