The Verbal Skills section of the HSPT is made up of five question types, one of which is logic questions. Logic questions are challenging for students, so we’ve put together some tips for approaching these tricky questions.
If you’re struggling with logic questions, you can also check out our comprehensive HSPT workbook which includes tons of logic practice questions, along with more than 2500 practice questions covering all five sections of the HSPT, and three full-length practice tests.
Logic questions give you three statements: the first two statements are true, and you need to determine if the third statement is true, false, or uncertain based on the first two statements.
There are generally two types of logic questions that show up on the HSPT, so here are some tips for approaching each type of logic question:
Logic Type 1: Order
Example: Sonia is taller than Ben but shorter than David. Ben is taller than Marissa. Sonia is shorter than Marisa. If the first two statements are true, the third statement is
a) true
b) false
c) uncertain
When approaching order logic questions, you’ll want to write down the information they’ve given you in a stacking manner. Let’s take a look at how to do this with our example.
The first statement says, “Sonia is taller than Ben but shorter than David.” So we can visually stack each person based on his/her height.
David
Sonia
Ben
*It’s important to leave some space in between each person in case you need to put someone else in between when you get to the second statement.
The second statement says, “Ben is taller than Marissa.”
Now we can add Marissa to the list below Ben because Ben is taller than Marissa.
David
Sonia
Ben
Marissa
Based on our visual, we can now determine if the third statement is true, false, or uncertain. The third statement says, “Sonia is shorter than Marissa.” Since Sonia is above Marissa in our list, this statement is false, so we get answer choice B as the correct answer.
Logic Type 2: Non-Order
Example: Every student at Mill’s Middle School lives in Greensville. Brenda lives in Greensville. Brenda is a student at Mill’s Middle School. If the first two statements are true, the third statement is
a) true
b) false
c) uncertain
When approaching non-order logic questions, we can’t stack the information. Instead, we can use a different type of diagram.
The first statement says, “Every student at Mill’s Middle School lives in Greensville.” We can visualize this with the diagram below:
The second statement says, “Brenda lives in Greensville.” So now let’s see where Brenda could be in our diagram. Since Brenda lives in Greensville, she just needs to be within the larger oval that represents people who live in Greensville. This means she could be within the smaller oval which represents students at Mill’s Middle school, or she could be outside of the smaller oval, as shown belo
This means that our third statement, “Brenda is a student at Mill’s High School,” is uncertain. So we get answer choice C as the correct answer.
So there you have it! Now you know how to approach logic questions on the HSPT. If you want more practice with logic questions, check out our comprehensive HSPT workbook which includes tons of logic practice questions, over 2500 practice questions covering all five sections of the HSPT, and three full-length practice tests.
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