The Drill Bank: 58 Reps

Everything in this section is original: written by me, in the test’s shapes, with none of LSAC’s words. That’s a feature and a boundary. The bank trains exactly 1 muscle, the naming muscle, the ability to see a bone before anyone shows you answer choices, and it trains it cheaply, with 0 real PrepTests burned. It is not a substitute for official questions; LawHub remains the diet, and the bank is the gym you visit between meals.

The rules, same as every drill in this book. Pen first: 1 written line per item before you touch its key. Work a set, check the key, tally any bone that fooled you in the journal. The standard isn’t done, it’s easy: mark a rematch date 1 week out for any set where you missed 2 or more, and redo it cold. Pace: 1 or 2 sets a session alongside your official-question work, not 58 reps in a sitting; this is seasoning, not the meal. Part 2’s chapters already handed you 55 reps inside the files, the rounds, and the door drills. These are the next 58.

Free companion #14: the Answer Sheet. A printable 1-line-per-item sheet for working the bank in sets, with the rematch rule built in. A short written guide is the bank’s operating manual. Free at unpluggedprep.com/books.

Section A: Call the gap (40 items)

For each mini-argument, write the bone’s name and the gap in 1 line, your words. Build-mode items say so; for those, write proven or not proven, plus why. Keys follow each set.

Set 1: after = because

1. The pharmacy began texting refill reminders in March, and on-time prescription pickups have risen ever since. The reminders are working.
2. The choir added a second weekly rehearsal this season, and reviews of the spring concert were the warmest in years. The extra rehearsal made the difference.
3. The orchard switched fertilizers last spring, and this fall’s yield rose 15 percent. The new fertilizer earns its price.
4. After the hotel raised its default room temperature, guest complaints fell by a quarter. Warmer rooms mean happier guests.
5. Students who attend office hours regularly earn higher grades than students who never go. Attending office hours raises grades.
6. In the 6 months since the city painted its downtown crosswalks bright red, jaywalking citations have fallen sharply. The paint is changing pedestrian behavior.

Key, set 1. 1: the suspect lineup; patients who opt into reminders may be the organized ones, and pickups could be rising for a dozen March-adjacent reasons. 2: another suspect (a new director, an easier program, a friendlier reviewer) plus a 1-season sample. 3: weather is the eternal co-defendant in any farming argument; 1 harvest can’t convict a fertilizer. 4: the season changed with the thermostat; winter complaints and summer complaints differ for free. 5: the arrow begs to reverse, and selection does the real work: conscientious students both attend and earn. 6: citations measure enforcement, not behavior (a stowaway word swap), and the police staffing or priorities may have moved with the paint.

Set 2: some = all

1. At the farmers market tasting booth, 9 of every 10 visitors who tried the salsa said they’d buy it. This town loves the salsa.
2. An exit poll of voters leaving the 7 a.m. voting slot showed the measure failing badly. The measure is headed for defeat.
3. Every guest who wrote in the inn’s guestbook this year praised their stay. The inn’s guests are uniformly delighted.
4. A focus group recruited from the brand’s email newsletter rated the redesigned logo highly. Consumers clearly approve of the new look.
5. All 4 dentists I know personally recommend this toothpaste, so the dental profession stands behind it.
6. In the podcast’s listener survey, 80 percent asked for longer episodes. The audience wants more.

Key, set 2. 7: the booth sampled people who chose to taste salsa, the pre-sold. 8: the 7 a.m. crowd is a demographic, not a sample; early voters skew in known ways. 9: the delighted write in guestbooks. The furious write somewhere else. 10: newsletter subscribers are the brand’s fans by definition; the skew arrived before the question did. 11: 4 is nothing and “I know personally” is worse than nothing; both questions fail. 12: the survey reached listeners devoted enough to answer surveys, the exact people who’d want more; the lapsed listener, the one the show should worry about, never saw the question.

Set 3: the word swap

1. The lighthouse is the most photographed building on the coast, so it must be the most beautiful.
2. The clinic’s reported wait times fell 30 percent this year. Patient care is improving.
3. Season 4 has the show’s highest viewer ratings, so it’s the show’s best season.
4. Applications to the teaching program doubled this year. Twice as many people want to teach.
5. Warranty claims on the new model are down 40 percent from the old one. The new model has fewer defects.
6. Most employees logged into the new wellness portal this quarter, so the workforce is getting healthier.

Key, set 3. 13: photographed and beautiful are cousins; the lighthouse may just sit next to the parking lot. 14: reported wait times and experienced care; the clock may have moved, or the reporting did. 15: ratings measure watching, not quality; season 3’s cliffhanger did the recruiting. 16: applications are not people (a dropped fee or an easier form mints applicants out of lookers), and applying is not wanting a career. 17: claims and defects; a stricter claims process or a shorter warranty cuts claims with the defect rate untouched. 18: logging in and getting healthier might be the widest swap in this bank; a click is not a habit.

Set 4: the one-way door

1. The scholarship is awarded only to applicants who complete 30 service hours. Tara completed 32 hours, so she’ll receive the scholarship.
2. If the ferry runs, the island shop opens. The shop is open this morning, so the ferry must be running.
3. Dogs aren’t allowed in the lobby unless they’re registered therapy animals. Bruno is a registered therapy animal, so Bruno is allowed in the lobby.
4. Every finalist submitted a portfolio by the deadline. Jin submitted a portfolio by the deadline, so Jin is a finalist.
5. If the alarm system is armed, the porch light blinks. The porch light isn’t blinking, so the system isn’t armed.
6. Whenever the chef’s special sells out, the kitchen closes early. The kitchen closed early tonight, so the special sold out.

Key, set 4. 19: “only to” marks a requirement, not a guarantee; 30 hours is the ticket to the drawing, not the prize. 20: backwards; the shopkeeper owns a kayak. 21: unless translates to if not registered, then not allowed; registration removes that 1 bar and grants nothing (the lobby may ban dogs over 50 pounds in a separate rule the argument never saw). 22: backwards; all finalists submitted, and so did 80 non-finalists. 23: proven, and savor it: armed guarantees blinking, no blinking walks the door’s 1 legal reverse. 24: backwards; kitchens close early for slow nights, sick cooks, and gas leaks.

Set 5: percent vs. count

1. Renewable sources supply twice the share of the regional grid they did a decade ago, so fossil fuel output in the region has fallen by half.
2. A smaller percentage of the airline’s flights were delayed this year than last. Fewer passengers sat through delays.
3. The club’s average dues paid per member rose this year, so the club raised more money from dues than last year.
4. Matinee showings now account for a third of the theater’s ticket sales, up from a fifth. Matinees are more popular than they used to be.
5. The factory’s defect rate fell from 2 percent to 1 percent, so it shipped fewer defective units this year.
6. E-books’ share of the library’s checkouts keeps climbing, so print readership is in decline there.

Key, set 5. 25: a share can double while the pie grows; total demand rising lets fossil output rise alongside a falling share. 26: the percentage fell, the flight count may have soared, and passengers sit on flights, not on percentages. 27: average per member up, membership possibly down; the total went wherever the denominator did. 28: a third of what? If evening sales collapsed, matinees gained share while losing customers. 29: half the rate of triple the production is more defective units, not fewer. 30: shares of checkouts sum to 100, so print’s share must fall as e-books’ rises, even in a year when print checkouts grew. The share was never the count.

Set 6: silence = evidence (build mode: proven or not proven, plus why)

1. Facts: the menu lists 6 vegetarian dishes. Candidate: the restaurant also serves meat.
2. Facts: the recital program lists Mia performing 2 pieces. Candidate: Mia performs more pieces than anyone else on the program.
3. Facts: every package on the truck was scanned at the depot; this package was never scanned. Candidate: this package isn’t on the truck.
4. Facts: the meeting minutes record no objection to the motion. Candidate: everyone at the meeting supported the motion.
5. Facts: the store’s posted return policy covers electronics for 30 days. Candidate: a sweater can’t be returned.
6. Facts: of the fair’s 24 pie entries, 9 won ribbons. Candidate: most of the entries won no ribbon.

Key, set 6. 31: not proven; a menu listing 6 vegetarian dishes is silent about the other dishes, and an all-vegetarian restaurant fits the fact perfectly. 32: not proven; the program is silent about everyone else’s count. 33: proven; the rule plus the missing scan is the contrapositive, walked legally. 34: not proven; minutes record what was said, and silence in a meeting is famously not support. 35: not proven; a policy about electronics says nothing about sweaters, in either direction. 36: proven, by arithmetic on the page; 15 of 24 won nothing, and 15 is most. Bricks only, and these 6 had exactly 2 candidates built from bricks.

Set 7: mixed company (no labels, served the way the test serves them; 2 of the 4 are build mode)

1. Members who log their workouts in the gym’s app every day report the best results of anyone at the gym. Daily logging drives results.
2. The bakery’s gluten-free line is its fastest-growing, and most customers at last month’s street fair asked about it, so it will soon be the bakery’s biggest seller.
3. Facts: season pass holders get early lift access; early lift access requires a signed waiver; Ren rode the early lift today. Candidates: (a) Ren signed a waiver. (b) Ren holds a season pass.
4. Facts: every vendor at the night market pays a stall fee; vendors who sell food must also hold a county permit; Rosa paid her stall fee and holds no permit. Candidate: Rosa doesn’t sell food.

Key, set 7. 37: 3 bones in a trench coat: the daily loggers selected themselves (some = all), “report the best results” is reporting, not results (the word swap), and even granting both, disciplined people both log and train (after = because, arrow reversed). 38: fastest-growing is not biggest (percent vs. count), and street-fair questioners are a self-selected sample of the curious, not a forecast of the register. 39: (a) proven, the chain walked forward: early access requires the waiver, and Ren had early access. (b) not proven, backwards: pass holders get early access, but the rule never said only pass holders do. One fact, 2 candidates, 1 legal walk. 40: proven; food vendors must hold permits, Rosa holds none, contrapositive: not a food vendor. If you wrote all 4 of these comfortably, Part 2 lives in you now, not on the page.

Section B: Find the vote (12 sentences)

Each sentence is an author voting. Write the direction (for, against, mixed), the size (full, partial), and the word that tipped you. Key at the end of the set.

1. What the critics miss is not the data but its direction.
2. One can admire the proposal’s ambition while doubting its arithmetic.
3. The findings are preliminary, as the authors themselves insist, and more interesting than preliminary findings have any right to be.
4. It has become fashionable to dismiss the older surveys; fashion is not an argument.
5. Even the theory’s architects now concede the third assumption.
6. If this is failure, most reforms should hope to fail so well.
7. The rebuttal is clever. The objection survives it.
8. Few historians still defend the traditional dating, and fewer should.
9. Her account explains everything except the part that needs explaining.
10. Caution is warranted; paralysis is not.
11. The skeptics ask the right question and accept the wrong answer.
12. Whatever else may be said of the method, it has earned the benefit of the doubt.

Key, section B. 41: against the critics, full (“miss” convicts them; the author holds the data’s direction). 42: mixed by design, for the ambition and against the numbers; “while” is the hinge. 43: for, enthusiastic but sized (“preliminary” conceded twice, then outvoted by “more interesting than they have any right to be”). 44: for the older surveys, by demolishing their dismissers; “fashion is not an argument” is the vote. 45: against the assumption, with the strongest witness available: its own architects (“even” and “concede” do the tipping). 46: for the reform, full, by mocking the “failure” framing. 47: split verdict in 6 words: a compliment to the rebuttal, the win to the objection; “survives” decides it. 48: against the traditional dating, full, and pushing past the consensus rather than riding it (“and fewer should”). 49: against, pointed; the praise in “explains everything” is the setup for the conviction. 50: mixed and prescriptive: the concern endorsed at partial size, the overreaction rejected. 51: split: the question validated, the answer convicted. 52: for, partial, concession-shaped; “whatever else may be said” banks the criticism while casting the yes.

Section C: Name the paragraph’s job (6 items)

Each line is how a paragraph opens. Name the job in 2 or 3 words. Key follows.

1. “The numbers, at first glance, support the consensus.”
2. “Three case studies will make the pattern concrete.”
3. “This objection, though popular, rests on a misreading.”
4. “The stakes extend well beyond the laboratory.”
5. “Earlier attempts failed for 2 reasons.”
6. “In the end, the simplest explanation survives.”

Key, section C. 53: sets up the view about to be challenged (“at first glance” is a loaded pivot warning; this paragraph is a concession with a fuse). 54: evidence preview; expect application, skim for the aisle labels. 55: rebuttal; the author defends against a challenge. 56: significance, the so-what paragraph. 57: background, the problem’s history, staging the author’s entrance. 58: the verdict. If you named all 6 in under 2 minutes, your aisle map is built; that’s the skill that makes detail questions cost 10 seconds.

•••

That’s the bank. 58 reps, every key naming a bone or a vote, all of it pointed at the same place: the moment on test day when a stranger’s argument walks in wearing a costume you’ve already tallied 4 times. Refill it yourself when it runs dry; every troubled question in LawHub is a 59th rep waiting for its 1 written line.

Watch: Mini Logical Reasoning LSAT Practice Tests?

Mini Logical Reasoning LSAT Practice Tests?

This chapter is from Anyone Can Beat the LSAT by Steve Schwartz, LSAT Coach and Founder of LSAT Unplugged. I've been coaching the LSAT since 2005.

Published July 28, 2026.