Free Logical Reasoning Test: 12 Practice Questions with Answers
Employers screen candidates with reasoning tests before the interview: SHL and Talent Q verbal reasoning, Watson Glaser critical thinking, and the civil service verbal test all work the same way. You get a short passage and must judge statements using only what the passage says — not what you happen to know. Twelve practice questions below in those formats, with the reasoning behind every answer. No sign-up, no PDF to download.
0 / 12 answered
Q1
PASSAGE: The Halden plant introduced a four-day week last year. Output per employee rose 6 percent, and voluntary resignations fell from 14 to 9. Managers report that scheduling meetings has become harder. STATEMENT: The four-day week caused output per employee to rise.
Q2
PASSAGE: The Halden plant introduced a four-day week last year. Output per employee rose 6 percent, and voluntary resignations fell from 14 to 9. Managers report that scheduling meetings has become harder. STATEMENT: Fewer employees resigned voluntarily last year than in the previous year.
Q3
PASSAGE: All the delivery vans at the Bristol depot are fitted with tracking units. Some of the vans at the Leeds depot are fitted with the same units. The units were bought from a single supplier. STATEMENT: Every van fitted with a tracking unit is based at the Bristol depot.
Q4
PASSAGE: The council will fund the new library only if the government grant is approved. The grant application was submitted in March and a decision is expected in September. STATEMENT: If the grant is approved, the council will fund the library.
Q5
PASSAGE: A survey of 300 commuters at Central Station found that 61 percent would use a night bus if one were introduced. The survey was conducted between 7am and 9am on weekdays. STATEMENT: A majority of the city's residents would use a night bus.
Q6
PASSAGE: Since the recycling depot opened, the tonnage of household waste sent to landfill by the borough has fallen every quarter. The borough's population has been stable throughout this period. STATEMENT: Household waste sent to landfill by the borough has never risen in any quarter since the depot opened.
Q7
DEDUCTION — decide whether the conclusion follows necessarily from the statements, treating the statements as true. STATEMENTS: No qualified auditor at the firm works part-time. Priya works part-time at the firm. CONCLUSION: Priya is not a qualified auditor.
Q8
DEDUCTION — decide whether the conclusion follows necessarily from the statements, treating the statements as true. STATEMENTS: All members of the safety committee have completed the fire course. Some members of the safety committee are engineers. CONCLUSION: All engineers at the company have completed the fire course.
Q9
DEDUCTION — decide whether the conclusion follows necessarily from the statements, treating the statements as true. STATEMENTS: Whenever the alarm is triggered, the shutters close automatically. The shutters are closed. CONCLUSION: The alarm was triggered.
Q10
ASSUMPTION RECOGNITION — decide whether the assumption is one the writer must be making. STATEMENT: 'We should move the team meeting to Wednesday morning, because that is when everyone is in the office.' PROPOSED ASSUMPTION: It is preferable for the team meeting to be held when everyone is in the office.
Q11
ASSUMPTION RECOGNITION — decide whether the assumption is one the writer must be making. STATEMENT: 'We should move the team meeting to Wednesday morning, because that is when everyone is in the office.' PROPOSED ASSUMPTION: Wednesday morning is the only time the whole team is ever available.
Q12
EVALUATION OF ARGUMENTS — decide whether the argument is strong (both important and directly relevant) or weak. QUESTION: Should the company require all staff to return to the office five days a week? ARGUMENT: 'No. Several employees have said they prefer working from home.'
Answer all 12 questions to see your result 👆
How to pass reasoning tests: the cheat sheet
- Use only the passage
- Outside knowledge is the top cause of lost marks. If the passage does not say it, it is not available to you — even if you know it is true.
- 'Cannot say' is not a cop-out
- It is the correct answer whenever the statement goes beyond the text. Candidates under-use it because it feels like giving up.
- 'False' means contradicted
- Reserve False for statements the passage rules out. Unsupported is not the same as contradicted.
- Only if ≠ if
- 'Only if X' makes X required, not sufficient. Flipping this is the most tested error across every format.
- Watch the scope words
- all / some / every / only. A conclusion that widens the group beyond the premises does not follow.
- Sequence is not cause
- A rose after B was introduced does not establish that B caused A, no matter how natural the story sounds.
- Deduction ignores realism
- In deduction sections, accept the premises as true even when they are strange. You are testing the link, not the facts.
- Strong = relevant and weighty
- In evaluation items, personal preference, small side effects and popularity are weak, even when they support a sensible position.
What employers' logical reasoning tests actually measure
Before an interview, many employers ask candidates to sit a reasoning test. The common ones are SHL and Talent Q verbal reasoning, the Watson Glaser critical thinking appraisal (widely used by law firms), and the civil service verbal test. They differ in branding and timing, but the underlying task is the same: you are given a short passage and must judge statements using only the information in front of you.
That last constraint is what the test is really measuring, and it is where most candidates lose marks. Given a passage about a company whose output rose after a policy change, it feels natural to conclude the policy worked. On these tests that conclusion is not available — the passage reports a sequence, not a cause. The discipline of answering from the text alone, while a clock runs, is the skill being scored.
The most common format is True / False / Cannot Say. 'True' means the statement follows from the passage. 'False' means the passage contradicts it. 'Cannot say' means the passage leaves it open — and it is under-used, because candidates read it as an admission of defeat rather than as the accurate answer. A useful habit: if a statement contains anything the passage did not state, start from 'Cannot say' and make the passage prove otherwise.
Watson Glaser adds sections on deduction, assumption recognition, interpretation and evaluation of arguments. Deduction asks only whether a conclusion is forced by the statements, so you accept odd premises without argument. Assumption recognition asks what the reasoning needs to stand up — and correct answers tend to sound weaker than the traps, because a real assumption is a minimum, not a maximum. Evaluation asks whether an argument is both relevant and weighty; preference and popularity are weak however reasonable the position.
None of this requires special knowledge, which is why practice moves scores so reliably. What improves is speed and the habit of not filling gaps with your own information. The twelve questions above are written in the formats described here, with the reasoning spelled out for every option.
Reasoning test FAQ
Are these real SHL or Watson Glaser questions?
No. Those tests are copyrighted by their publishers. These are original questions written in the same formats — True / False / Cannot Say, deduction, assumption recognition and evaluation of arguments — using the same traps the real tests rely on.
Is this test really free?
Yes. No account, no email, no PDF download. The questions and full explanations are on this page.
How is 'Cannot say' different from 'False'?
'False' means the passage contradicts the statement. 'Cannot say' means the passage neither establishes nor rules it out. Most wrong answers come from choosing False when the honest answer is that the text simply does not cover it.
Can you actually improve at these tests?
Yes, and more than people expect. The content requires no special knowledge, so nearly all improvement comes from format familiarity, timing, and the habit of answering only from the passage. That is why practice under a clock helps.
How long are the real tests?
It varies by employer, but verbal reasoning sections are typically 15 to 30 questions in 15 to 25 minutes, which works out to under a minute per item. Practising untimed first and adding the clock later is the usual approach.
What if I need to practise for the LSAT or GMAT instead?
The reading discipline is the same but the format is longer and harder, with five answer choices and more complex arguments. The assumption, strengthen and weaken drills linked from this page cover those.