Where LSAT Reading Comp passages come from

What stands out

• Scientific American is the single biggest source. LSAC credits it for 14 passages, and my research turned up 4 more. That's about 1 in 5 of the science passages with a known source, plus a few in social science and history.
• Each subject has its own favorite kind of source. About 53% of the law passages with a known source come from law reviews and legal journals. Humanities passages come from books about 53% of the time, and social science from academic journals about 50% of the time. Science splits between magazines like Scientific American and journals like Nature and Science.
• LSAC got a lot more open over time. On the oldest tests it credits a source for 8% of passages. On the newer ones it's 84%. Most of the blanks are in the early tests.
• History is the hardest subject to trace. Only 50% of history passages have a known source, against 60% or more for every other subject.

How to use this list

If you're taking the LSAT next week, skip the outside reading. Use the list only in review. When a passage gives you trouble, type its PrepTest number into the search box below (it also takes an author or a subject), find the original, and read all of it. You'll see the argument before LSAC adapted it, and where the author really lands.

Don't jump straight into the original, though. Reread the LSAT passage first and write one sentence for the main point and one for the author's view. Then read the original and check both sentences against it.

If your main point was off, look at what you latched onto instead. Usually it's an example, or a view the author brings up only to push back on. That's the exact mistake the wrong answers on main point and author's attitude questions are built around, and seeing it in the full article makes it a lot easier to spot under time pressure.

After you've done that a few times, you start noticing what LSAC keeps from a long article and what it cuts. That makes the next passage feel a lot less random.

Finding the originals is usually easier than people expect. Search the exact title in quotes with the author's last name, and you'll get most of the magazine and newspaper pieces. Journal articles are often on JSTOR, which lets you read a limited number free with an account. Your public library card may also get you into newspaper and magazine archives, and you can borrow some of the older books online with a free Internet Archive account (the list marks which).

Where to start: 12 that became passages

If your test is a few months out and you want a reading list, pick the subject that gives you the most trouble and read 1 or 2 pieces a week. LSAC adapted each one below into a passage, so I put its LawHub PrepTest number next to it. Most are behind a paywall or a monthly article limit, which is where that library card comes in. Two are free.

• John Mearsheimer, “Why We Will Soon Miss the Cold War” (1990, PrepTest 121). Free scan on his own site.
• Daniel Kahneman and Amos Tversky, “The Psychology of Preferences” (1982, PrepTest 113).
• Stephen Jay Gould, “Darwinian Fundamentalism” (1997, PrepTest 141).
• Paul Krugman, “The Pin Factory Mystery” (2006, PrepTest 138). It's a book review, so the page shows the book's title instead.
• Kwame Anthony Appiah, “Whose Culture Is It?” (2006, PrepTest 147).
• Guy Deutscher, “Does Your Language Shape How You Think?” (2010, PrepTest 155).
• Freeman Dyson, “One in a Million” (2004, PrepTest 156).
• Janet Malcolm, “The Genius of the Glass House” (1999, PrepTest 141).
• Karl Sigmund, Ernst Fehr, and Martin Nowak, “The Economics of Fair Play” (2001, PrepTest 131).
• Jeffrey Rosen, “The Brain on the Stand” (2007, PrepTest 142).
• Alfred Lessing, “What Is Wrong With a Forgery?” (1983, PrepTest 145). Free to read with a JSTOR account.
• Christopher Lasch, “The Corruption of Sports” (1977, PrepTest 159). Its passage is also in LSAC's free April 2025 test (PDF).

Most of those you can read in an afternoon. A few of the books on the full list are worth it too if you like the subject. Ted Gioia's Delta Blues (PrepTest 153) and David Quammen's The Song of the Dodo (PrepTest 139) are both well written, and both were adapted into Reading Comp passages.

A note of caution. This is extra reading, on top of timed sections and careful review. It gets you used to the style. It won't teach you why the wrong answers are wrong, and that's still where most Reading Comp points come from.

Why 104 passages have no source

There are 2 different reasons. For 71 passages, the booklet has a credits page and it lists nothing for that passage. That passage may be LSAC's own writing, or a source LSAC didn't list, and the booklet doesn't say which. For the other 33, the copies I have of those booklets (a run of the earliest tests, plus February 1997) show no credits page at all, so I can't tell. Each row says which case it is. If you know where one of the blank passages came from, or you have a print copy of an older PrepTest with a credits page I'm missing, email [email protected] and I'll add it.