LASD Inductive and Deductive Reasoning Practice
LASD's guide lists these as two separate skills tested back to back: inductive reasoning asks you to paraphrase a passage's meaning; deductive reasoning asks you to judge which statement does least to support a given conclusion.
- Inductive reasoning
- Read a brief passage; choose the paraphrase closest in meaning to it
- Deductive reasoning
- Given a conclusion and several statements, decide which statement does least to support it
Inductive reasoning
This is a paraphrase task: you read a short passage and pick the answer choice that restates its meaning most accurately, without adding or dropping anything the passage actually said.
Deductive reasoning
This is an evidence-weighing task in reverse: you're given a conclusion and a set of statements, and you identify the statement that contributes LEAST to supporting that conclusion — the odd one out, not the best fit.
Example (illustrative, not from the official test): conclusion — "the parking structure was closed to the public on the day in question." Statements include a closure notice, a witness account of an open gate, and two supporting maintenance records. The witness account is the one that does least to support the conclusion — the deductive skill is spotting that a source can point the other way even among generally supportive evidence.