INTRODUCTION vii
QUESTIONS 1
ANSWERS 99
Contents
v
T
his book—which can be used alone, with other logic and reasoning texts of your choice, or in com-
bination with LearningExpress’s Reasoning Skills Success in 20 Minutes a Day—will give you practice
dealing with the types of multiple-choice questions that appear on standardized tests assessing logic,
reasoning, judgment, and critical thinking. It is designed to be used by individuals working on their own and by
teachers or tutors helping students learn, review, or practice basic logic and reasoning skills. Practice on 501 logic
and reasoning questions will go a long way in alleviating test anxiety, too!
Maybe you’re one of the millions of people who, as students in elementary or high school, never understood
the necessity of having to read opinion essays and draw conclusions from the writer’s argument. Or maybe you
never understood why you had to work through all those verbal analogies or number series questions. Maybe you
were one of those people who could never see a “plan of attack”when working through logic games or critical think-
ing puzzles. Or perhaps you could never see a connection between everyday life and analyzing evidence from a
series of tedious reading passages. If you fit into one of these groups, this book is for you.
First, know you are not alone. It is true that some people relate more easily than do others to number series
questions, verbal analogies, logic games, and reading passages that present an argument. And that’s okay; we all
have unique talents. Still, it’s a fact that for most jobs today, critical thinking skills—including analytical and log-
ical reasoning—are essential. The good news is that these skills can be developed with practice.
Learn by doing. It’s an old lesson, tried and true. And it’s the tool this book is designed to give you. The 501
logic and reasoning questions that follow will provide you with lots of practice. As you work through each set of
questions, you’ll be gaining a solid understanding of basic analytical and logical reasoning skills—all without mem-
orizing! The purpose of this book is to help you improve your critical thinking through encouragement, no
frustration.
Introduction
vii
An Overview
501 Challenging Logic and Reasoning Problems is
divided into 37 sets of questions:
Sets 1–4: Number Series
Sets 5–6: Letter and Symbol Series
Sets 7–8: Verbal Classification
Sets 9–11: Essential Part
Sets 12–17: Analogies
Sets 18–19: Artificial Language
Set 20: Matching Definitions
Set 21: Making Judgments
Set 22: Verbal Reasoning
Sets 23–27: Logic Problems
Sets 28–31: Logic Games
Sets 32–37: Analyzing Arguments
Each set contains between 5–20 questions,
depending on their length and difficulty. The book is
specifically organized to help you build confidence as
you further develop your logic and reasoning skills.
501 Challenging Logic and Reasoning Problems begins
with basic number and letter series questions, and then
moves on to verbal classification, artificial language,
and matching definition items. The last sets contain
logic problems, logic games, and logical reasoning
questions. By the time you reach the last question,
you’ll feel confident that you’ve improved your critical
thinking and logical reasoning abilities.
How to Use This Book
Whether you’re working alone or helping someone
brush up his or her critical thinking and reasoning
skills, this book will give you the opportunity to prac-
tice, practice, practice!
Working on Your Own
If you are working alone to improve your logic skills or
prepare for a test in connection with a job or school,
you will probably want to use this book in combination
with its companion text, Reasoning Skills Success in 20
Minutes a Day, 2nd Edition, or with some other basic
reasoning skills text. If you’re fairly sure of your basic
logic and reasoning abilities, however, you can use 501
Challenging Logic and Reasoning Problems by itself.
Use the answer key at the end of the book not
only to find out if you got the right answer, but also to
learn how to tackle similar kinds of questions next
time. Every answer is explained. Make sure you under-
stand the explanations—usually by going back to the
questions—before moving on to the next set.
Tutoring Others
This book will work well in combination with almost
any analytical reasoning or logic text. You will proba-
bly find it most helpful to give students a brief lesson
in the particular operation they’ll be learning—
number series, verbal classification, artificial language,
logic problems, analyzing arguments—and then have
them spend the remainder of the session actually
answering the questions in the sets. You will want to
stress the importance of learning by doing and of
checking their answers and reading the explanations
carefully. Make sure they understand a particular set of
questions before you assign the next one.
Additional Resources
Answering the 501 logic and reasoning questions in this
book will give you lots of practice. Another way to
improve your reasoning ability is to read and study on
your own and devise your own unique methods of
attacking logic problems. Following is a list of logic and
reasoning books you may want to buy or take out of the
library:
–
INTRODUCTION
–
viii
REASONING
Reasoning Skills Success in 20 Minutes a Day
(2nd Edition) by LearningExpress
Critical Reasoning: A Practical Introduction by
Anne Thomson (Routledge)
Attacking Faulty Reasoning: A Practical Guide to
Fallacy-Free Arguments by T. Edward Damer
(Wadsworth)
Thinking Critically: Techniques for Logical Rea-
soning by James H. Kiersky and Nicholas J.
Caste (Wadsworth)
LOGIC
Essential Logic: Basic Reasoning Skills for the
Twenty-First Century by Ronald C. Pine
(Oxford University Press)
Increase Your Puzzle IQ: Tips and Tricks for
Building Your Logic Power by Marcel Danesi
(Wiley)
Amazing Logic Puzzles by Norman D. Willis
(Sterling)
Challenging Logic Puzzles by Barry R. Clarke
(Sterling)
CRITICAL THINKING
Critical Thinking by Alec Fisher (Cambridge
University Press)
Brainplay: Challenging Puzzles & Thinking
Games by Tom Werneck (Sterling)
Challenging Critical Thinking Puzzles by
Michael A. Dispezio and Myron Miller
(Sterling)
Becoming a Critical Thinker: A User-Friendly
Manual by Sherry Diestler (Prentice Hall)
ANALOGIES
501 Word Analogy Questions by Learning-
Express
Analogies for Beginners by Lynne Chatham
(Dandy Lion Publications)
Cracking the MAT (3rd Edition) by Marcia
Lerner (Princeton Review)
–
INTRODUCTION
–
ix
R
eady to test your mental abilities? Your 501 challenging logic and reasoning problems begin on the
next page. They’re grouped together in sets of 5–20 questions with a common theme. You can work
through the sets in order or jump around, whichever you choose. When you finish a set, check your
answers beginning on page 99.
Questions
1
Set 1
(Answers begin on page 99.)
Start off with these simple series of numbers. Number
series questions measure your ability to reason without
words. To answer these questions, you must determine
the pattern of the numbers in each series before you will
be able to choose which number comes next. These
questions involve only simple arithmetic. Although
most number series items progress by adding or sub-
tracting, some questions involve simple multiplication
or division. In each series, look for the degree and
direction of change between the numbers. In other
words, do the numbers increase or decrease, and by
how much?
1. Look at this series: 2, 4, 6, 8, 10, What num-
ber should come next?
a. 11
b. 12
c. 13
d. 14
2. Look at this series: 58, 52, 46, 40, 34, What
number should come next?
a. 26
b. 28
c. 30
d. 32
3. Look at this series: 40, 40, 47, 47, 54, What
number should come next?
a. 40
b. 44
c. 54
d. 61
4. Look at this series: 544, 509, 474, 439, What
number should come next?
a. 404
b. 414
c. 420
d. 445
5. Look at this series: 201, 202, 204, 207, What
number should come next?
a. 205
b. 208
c. 210
d. 211
6. Look at this series: 8, 22, 8, 28, 8, What
number should come next?
a. 9
b. 29
c. 32
d. 34
7. Look at this series: 80, 10, 70, 15, 60, What
number should come next?
a. 20
b. 25
c. 30
d. 50
8. Look at this series: 36, 34, 30, 28, 24, What
number should come next?
a. 20
b.
22
c. 23
d. 26
9. Look at this series: 22, 21, 23, 22, 24, 23,
What number should come next?
a. 22
b. 24
c. 25
d. 26
–
QUESTIONS
–
2
10. Look at this series: 3, 4, 7, 8, 11, 12, What
number should come next?
a. 7
b. 10
c. 14
d. 15
11. Look at this series: 31, 29, 24, 22, 17, What
number should come next?
a. 15
b. 14
c. 13
d. 12
12. Look at this series: 21, 9, 21, 11, 21, 13,
What number should come next?
a. 14
b. 15
c. 21
d. 23
13. Look at this series: 53, 53, 40, 40, 27, 27,
What number should come next?
a. 12
b. 14
c. 27
d. 53
14. Look at this series: 2, 6, 18, 54, What num-
ber should come next?
a. 108
b. 148
c. 162
d. 216
15. Look at this series: 1,000, 200, 40, What
number should come next?
a. 8
b. 10
c. 15
d. 20
16. Look at this series: 7, 10, 8, 11, 9, 12, What
number should come next?
a. 7
b. 10
c. 12
d. 13
17. Look at this series: 14, 28, 20, 40, 32, 64,
What number should come next?
a. 52
b. 56
c. 96
d. 128
18. Look at this series: 1.5, 2.3, 3.1, 3.9, What
number should come next?
a. 4.2
b. 4.4
c. 4.7
d. 5.1
19. Look at this series: 5.2, 4.8, 4.4, 4, What
number should come next?
a. 3
b. 3.3
c. 3.5
d. 3.6
20. Look at this series: 2, 1,
ᎏ
1
2
ᎏ
,
ᎏ
1
4
ᎏ
, What number
should come next?
a.
ᎏ
1
3
ᎏ
b.
ᎏ
1
8
ᎏ
c.
ᎏ
2
8
ᎏ
d.
ᎏ
1
1
6
ᎏ
–
QUESTIONS
–
3
Set 2
(Answers begin on page 101.)
This set contains additional, and sometimes more
difficult, number series questions. Again, each ques-
tion has a definite pattern. Some of the number series
may be interrupted by a particular number that
appears periodically in the pattern. For example, in
the series 14, 16, 32, 18, 20, 32, 22, 24, 32, the number
32 appears as every third number. Sometimes, the
pattern contains two alternating series. For example,
in the series 1, 5, 3, 7, 5, 9, 7, the pattern is add 4, sub-
tract 2, add 4, subtract 2, and so on. Look carefully for
the pattern, and then choose which pair of numbers
comes next. Note also that you will be choosing from
five options instead of four.
21. 84 78 72 66 60 54 48
a. 44 34
b. 42 36
c. 42 32
d. 40 34
e. 38 32
22. 3 8 13 18 23 28 33
a. 39 44
b. 38 44
c. 38 43
d. 37 42
e. 33 38
23. 20 20 17 17 14 14 11
a. 8 8
b. 11 11
c. 11 14
d. 8 9
e. 11 8
24. 18 21 25 18 29 33 18
a. 43 18
b. 41 44
c. 37 18
d. 37 41
e. 38 41
25. 9 11 33 13 15 33 17
a. 19 33
b. 33 35
c. 33 19
d. 15 33
e. 19 21
26. 2 8 14 20 26 32 38
a. 2 46
b. 44 50
c. 42 48
d. 40 42
e. 32 26
27. 28 25 5 21 18 5 14
a. 11 5
b. 10 7
c. 11 8
d. 5 10
e. 10 5
28. 9 12 11 14 13 16 15
a. 14 13
b. 18 21
c. 14 17
d. 12 13
e.
18 17
29. 75 65 85 55 45 85 35
a. 25 15
b. 25 85
c. 35 25
d. 85 35
e. 25 75
–
QUESTIONS
–
4
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