CLT Practice Questions (2026) — Free Sample Questions with Answers

15 free CLT questions from our 150-question bank, grouped by content domain. Each answer explains why the right option is right — and why every wrong option is wrong.

Comprehension (3)Analysis (2)Grammar (5)Algebra (1)Geometry (2)Mathematical Reasoning (2)

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Comprehension

Question 1

Emil : despair ::

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Answer: D

resolve : Alexandra: Reverses the order: feeling : character. Alexandra walks "resolutely," but this pair puts the feeling first.

dog : kitten: Different relationship: a pursuer and the animal it chased up the pole.

Alexandra : veil: Different relationship: a person and something she wears.

kitten : fright: Correct. Emil "was sunk in despair" (Paragraph 2); the kitten is "too frightened to move," "shivering," and "clinging desperately" to the pole. Both pairs are a character : the feeling that dominates it in the scene, in the same order.

For character analogies, name the relationship ("despair dominates Emil") and keep the character first.

Question 2

Based on the passages, both speakers would most likely agree that

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Answer: C

the dead should be buried on the field where they fell: Unsupported for Passage 1: Pericles says the noblest sepulchre is not where the bones lie.

a nation’s form of government was the true cause of the war being fought: Neither passage discusses the causes of its war.

the deeds of the dead speak more powerfully than words spoken over them: Correct. Pericles says worth shown "in deeds" should be honored by deeds, not left to "a single individual" speaking well or ill (Passage 1, Paragraph 1); Lincoln says the world "can never forget what they did here" though it will not long remember "what we say here" (Passage 2, Paragraph 3).

the living owe nothing further to the dead once the dead have been buried: Opposite: both speakers call on the living to continue the cause.

Synthesis items need a claim each passage supports; find one line in each passage before choosing.

Question 3

Over the course of the passage, the narrator primarily

Literature

¹This passage is adapted from Jane Austen, Persuasion (1817), Chapter 1. Omissions are marked with ". . ."

²Sir Walter Elliot, of Kellynch Hall, in Somersetshire, was a man who, for his own amusement, never took up any book but the Baronetage; there he found occupation for an idle hour, and consolation in a distressed one; there his faculties were roused into admiration and respect, by contemplating the limited remnant of the earliest patents; there any unwelcome sensations, arising from domestic affairs changed naturally into pity and contempt as he turned over the almost endless creations of the last century; and there, if every other leaf were powerless, he could read his own history with an interest which never failed. . . .

³Vanity was the beginning and the end of Sir Walter Elliot's character; vanity of person and of situation. He had been remarkably handsome in his youth; and, at fifty-four, was still a very fine man. Few women could think more of their personal appearance than he did, nor could the valet of any new made lord be more delighted with the place he held in society. He considered the blessing of beauty as inferior only to the blessing of a baronetcy; and the Sir Walter Elliot, who united these gifts, was the constant object of his warmest respect and devotion.

⁴His good looks and his rank had one fair claim on his attachment; since to them he must have owed a wife of very superior character to any thing deserved by his own. Lady Elliot had been an excellent woman, sensible and amiable; whose judgement and conduct, if they might be pardoned the youthful infatuation which made her Lady Elliot, had never required indulgence afterwards. She had humoured, or softened, or concealed his failings, and promoted his real respectability for seventeen years; and though not the very happiest being in the world herself, had found enough in her duties, her friends, and her children, to attach her to life, and make it no matter of indifference to her when she was called on to quit them. Three girls, the two eldest sixteen and fourteen, was an awful legacy for a mother to bequeath, an awful charge rather, to confide to the authority and guidance of a conceited, silly father. She had, however, one very intimate friend, a sensible, deserving woman, who had been brought, by strong attachment to herself, to settle close by her, in the village of Kellynch; and on her kindness and advice, Lady Elliot mainly relied for the best help and maintenance of the good principles and instruction which she had been anxiously giving her daughters.

⁵This friend, and Sir Walter, did not marry, whatever might have been anticipated on that head by their acquaintance. Thirteen years had passed away since Lady Elliot's death, and they were still near neighbours and intimate friends, and one remained a widower, the other a widow.

⁶That Lady Russell, of steady age and character, and extremely well provided for, should have no thought of a second marriage, needs no apology to the public, which is rather apt to be unreasonably discontented when a woman does marry again, than when she does not; but Sir Walter's continuing in singleness requires explanation. Be it known then, that Sir Walter, like a good father, (having met with one or two private disappointments in very unreasonable applications), prided himself on remaining single for his dear daughters' sakes. For one daughter, his eldest, he would really have given up any thing, which he had not been very much tempted to do. Elizabeth had succeeded, at sixteen, to all that was possible, of her mother's rights and consequence; and being very handsome, and very like himself, her influence had always been great, and they had gone on together most happily. His two other children were of very inferior value. Mary had acquired a little artificial importance, by becoming Mrs Charles Musgrove; but Anne, with an elegance of mind and sweetness of character, which must have placed her high with any people of real understanding, was nobody with either father or sister; her word had no weight, her convenience was always to give way—she was only Anne.

⁷To Lady Russell, indeed, she was a most dear and highly valued god-daughter, favourite, and friend. Lady Russell loved them all; but it was only in Anne that she could fancy the mother to revive again.

⁸A few years before, Anne Elliot had been a very pretty girl, but her bloom had vanished early; and as even in its height, her father had found little to admire in her, (so totally different were her delicate features and mild dark eyes from his own), there could be nothing in them, now that she was faded and thin, to excite his esteem. He had never indulged much hope, he had now none, of ever reading her name in any other page of his favourite work.

Show answer & explanation

Answer: D

traces the Elliot family's history from its earliest patents to the present day: Misreads Paragraph 1: the family history is only what Sir Walter likes to read; the narrator never traces it.

shows how Anne's loss of beauty turned her family against her: Reverses the cause: Paragraph 7 says her father found little to admire in her "even in its height," so fading did not cause his neglect.

explains why Lady Russell declined to become Sir Walter's second wife: Unsupported: Paragraph 4 says only that the two did not marry; Paragraph 5 explains why Sir Walter stayed single, not a refusal by Lady Russell.

portrays a vain father and the unequal value he places on his three daughters: Correct. Paragraph 2 names vanity as "the beginning and the end" of Sir Walter's character, and Paragraph 5 sets his favourite, Elizabeth, against Mary and Anne, who are "of very inferior value"; the whole passage builds this portrait.

For a main-idea question, choose the option that covers every paragraph; a detail from one paragraph (the Baronetage, Lady Russell) is too narrow.

Analysis

Question 4

Based on the table, which of the following conclusions can be drawn?

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Answer: B

Within 5 meters of the lamp, Species A stopped flashing entirely during the study.: Overstates the data: Species A still averaged 4 flashes at 0–5 m, which is low but not zero.

Species A’s counts rose with distance far more than Species B’s counts did.: Correct. Species A climbs from 4 to 9, 18, 31 and 34 flashes as distance increases (a rise of 30); Species B moves only from 21 to 28.

If the lamp were moved 100 meters away, Species B would flash more than 28 times.: Projects beyond the data: the table stops at the unlit control plot, and nothing shows counts rising above the control value.

The lamp reduced the number of successful matings for both species near the light.: Goes beyond the table: it counts flashes, not matings, and Species B is barely affected.

A conclusion "can be drawn" only if the numbers in the table show it; reject projections, causes and outcomes the table does not measure.

Question 5

Based on the passage, the author would most likely agree that an unbelieving gentleman's apparent religious belief

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Answer: A

can be reasoned conclusions rather than true conviction: Correct. Paragraph 7 says his logic lets him see what believers would consistently hold, so he "appears" to hold theological truths that exist in his mind only as deductions.

is a deliberate deception practiced on others: Overstates: he "appears to others" to hold these truths, but the author never says he means to deceive.

is something he openly ridicules: Contradicts Paragraph 6, Sentence 1: he is too large-minded "to ridicule religion."

always reflects a sincere and deeply felt personal faith: Contradicts Paragraph 7: the truths he seems to hold exist in his mind only "as a number of deductions."

Separate how something "appears to others" from what the author says is really in the mind; inference keys stay within that gap.

Grammar

Question 6

[1] school ended early for Nathaniel Bowditch.

Historical Profile

¹This passage is an original essay written for PrepBanq practice.

²Born in Salem, Massachusetts, in 1773, [1] school ended early for Nathaniel Bowditch. His family was poor, and by the age of ten he was working in his father’s cooper shop, where barrels were made. At twelve he was bound as an apprentice to a ship chandler, a merchant [2] whom supplied rope, canvas, and instruments to the vessels crowding Salem’s harbor. He would never attend college.

³The hours were long and the pay was meager. [3] For example, the shop gave Bowditch something no classroom had offered him: quiet stretches between customers and the freedom to fill them as he liked. He borrowed books wherever he could [4] find them, he even taught himself Latin so that he could read Isaac Newton’s Principia in the original. When a passage in a book was beyond him, he copied it out by hand and returned to it until it made sense.

⁴[5] When he finally went to sea in 1795, he sailed on five voyages in total, and on the last of these five voyages he served as the captain of the ship, the master in command of the vessel. On those long passages he checked the standard guide of the day, John Hamilton Moore’s The Practical Navigator, and found thousands of errors in its tables, mistakes that could [6] imperil a ship and every sailor aboard it.

⁵In 1802 Bowditch published The New American Practical Navigator, a guide that corrected those errors and explained its methods in plain language. Its pages assumed no formal schooling, only patience and care. Neither its corrected tables nor its simpler method for finding longitude from observations of the moon [7] were beyond the reach of an ordinary seaman. According to a story often told about him, he once taught every member of a crew, down to the cook, to work these calculations. [8] Salem was also the home of the writer Nathaniel Hawthorne, who was born there in 1804. The book soon became the standard guide for American sailors.

⁶Bowditch’s fame grew. [9] Lo, though the groves of academe beckoned him with honeyed entreaties, the sage of Salem spurned their siren song. He spent his later career working in the insurance business in Salem and Boston. In his spare hours he took on his greatest scholarly labor: a translation of [10] the French mathematician, Pierre-Simon Laplace’s Mécanique céleste, a vast treatise on the motions of the planets and the moon. He added extensive commentary of his own and paid to print the four volumes himself; the last of them appeared in 1839, a year after his death.

⁷Revised many times since, The New American Practical Navigator is still published by the United States government. To generations of sailors, it has been known simply as “Bowditch.” Few books written by a self-taught apprentice have been trusted with so many lives.

Show answer & explanation

Answer: D

NO CHANGE: Leaves the modifier dangling: "Born in Salem . . . in 1773" now describes school, which was not born.

Nathaniel Bowditch’s schooling ended early.: Still dangles: the subject is schooling, so the opening phrase describes the schooling rather than the person.

early, school ended for Nathaniel Bowditch.: Moves early but keeps school as the subject, so the modifier still describes the wrong noun.

Nathaniel Bowditch left school early.: Correct: an introductory modifier must be followed by the noun it describes; the person who was born in Salem is Bowditch: "Born in Salem, Massachusetts, in 1773, Nathaniel Bowditch left school early."

After an introductory participial phrase, the next noun must be the one the phrase describes; a possessive (Bowditch’s) does not fix the problem.

Question 7

[1] was certain

Modern Influential Thinkers/Issues

¹This passage is an original essay written for PrepBanq practice.

²In the decades after World War II, American cities set out to rebuild themselves on a grand scale. The planners of that era, confident that wide highways and tall towers set apart in open plazas would cure crowded neighborhoods, [1] was certain that the old street grid had outlived its usefulness. Few people outside the profession thought to question them, and fewer still were heard.

³[2] Jane Jacobs, who had never trained as a planner, learned about cities by watching them. From her home on Hudson Street in Greenwich Village, she studied the rhythm of the sidewalk below. Shopkeepers swept their doorways in the morning, children walked to school in clusters, and neighbors stopped to trade news on the corner. In the evening the pattern changed, but it never stopped. To a planner’s eye, this bustle looked like disorder. [3] Therefore, Jacobs saw in it a complex and delicate kind of order.

⁴In 1961 she set out her case in The Death and Life of Great American Cities. A street is safest, she argued, when ordinary people keep watch over it as they go about their business. [4] Busy sidewalks lined with shops and homes, she wrote, place “eyes on the street” at every hour of the day. A neighborhood also needs a mix of uses, so that people come and go for different reasons at different times. Each of the districts she admired had [5] their own blend of apartments, workshops, stores, and taverns, and that blend kept the streets alive from morning until late at night.

⁵Jacobs did not stay at her window. In the late 1950s she joined neighbors who were fighting a plan to extend a roadway through Washington Square Park, and the threat to the park seemed [6] eminent. The plan’s chief champion was Robert Moses, who had shaped New York’s bridges, parks, and highways for decades. [7] Moses, the big boss of New York building, was totally not into hearing it from some lady with a notebook. The neighbors prevailed anyway, and the park was closed to traffic.

⁶A few years later, when the city revived plans for the Lower Manhattan Expressway, Jacobs [8] helped organize the opposition. [9] The expressway, which would have cut across SoHo and Little Italy, was in the end eventually abandoned and given up after years of protest and opposition. In 1968 Jacobs moved with her family to Toronto, where she joined a successful campaign against another highway, the Spadina Expressway, and she continued to write until her death in 2006.

⁷Today, the profession that once dismissed her treats her book as a classic, and her [10] admirer’s still gather each spring for neighborhood walks held in her name. The lesson they honor is a simple one: before remaking a city, look closely at how its people already live.

Show answer & explanation

Answer: C

NO CHANGE: Pairs the singular was with the plural subject planners; the long phrase after the comma hides the real subject.

is certain: Is still singular and also shifts to the present tense in a passage about the postwar decades.

were certain: Correct: the subject is the plural planners, not neighborhoods or plazas inside the intervening phrase, so the verb must be plural and past: "The planners of that era . . . were certain."

has been certain: Is singular, and the present perfect does not fit events that ended decades ago.

Strip out the phrase between the subject and the verb (here "of that era, confident that . . . neighborhoods,") and match the verb to the subject that remains.

Question 8

[7] animals. Extreme

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Answer: B

NO CHANGE: Leaves "Extreme cold, intense radiation, and even the vacuum of space" as a fragment with no verb.

animals: extreme: Correct. The list explains which conditions are meant, and a colon after the complete clause "The tun can endure conditions that would kill most animals" properly introduces it.

animals; extreme: A semicolon must be followed by an independent clause, but the list has no verb.

animals and extreme: Makes "extreme cold" one more thing that would be killed alongside animals, garbling the meaning.

A list that explains a complete clause can follow a colon; it cannot stand alone as its own sentence.

Question 9

[4] was

Show answer & explanation

Answer: C

NO CHANGE: Singular was does not agree with the plural compound subject that follows the verb.

is: Singular and in the present tense; it fails both agreement and the past-tense narrative.

were: Correct. In this inverted sentence the subject comes after the verb: "overcrowded wards, broken drains, and a shortage…" is a compound, plural subject, so the verb is plural: "Among the problems she confronted were…"

has been: Singular and in the present perfect, so it fails agreement and tense.

When a sentence opens with a prepositional phrase ("Among the problems…"), find the subject after the verb; a compound subject joined by and is plural.

Question 10

[2] plan, his

Show answer & explanation

Answer: D

NO CHANGE: Creates a comma splice: two independent clauses joined only by a comma.

plan his: Creates a run-on (fused) sentence with no punctuation or conjunction between the clauses.

plan. Because his: Turns the second clause into a fragment: "Because his translations … became standard textbooks" has no main clause.

plan, but his: Correct. A comma plus the coordinating conjunction but properly joins the two independent clauses and signals the contrast between finishing only part of the plan and the translations' lasting success.

Two independent clauses need a period, a semicolon, or a comma plus a coordinating conjunction (and, but, or, so…).

Algebra

Question 11

Let $f (x) = 2 x + 1$ and $g (x) = x^{2} - 3$ . If $a > 0$ and $f (g (a)) = 11$ , what is the value of $a$ ?

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Answer: B

1. Work from the outside: $f (g (a)) = 2 g (a) + 1 = 11$ , so $g (a) = 5$ .
2. $a^{2} - 3 = 5$ , so $a^{2} = 8$ .
3. Since $a > 0$ , $a = 8 = 4 \cdot 2 = 22$ .
4. Check: $g (22) = 8 - 3 = 5$ and $f (5) = 11$ .

$5$ : Finds $g (a) = 5$ but then takes the square root of 5 without first adding 3.

$22$ : Correct. $f (g (a)) = 2 (a^{2} - 3) + 1 = 2 a^{2} - 5 = 11$ , so $a^{2} = 8$ and $a = 8 = 22$ .

$4$ : Reaches $a^{2} = 8$ and then halves 8 instead of taking the square root.

$8$ : Stops at $a^{2} = 8$ and forgets to take the square root.

In f(g(a)), the output of g becomes the input of f; undo f first, then g.

Geometry

Question 12

In $△ A B C$ below, $\overline{D E}$ is parallel to $\overline{B C}$ , $A D = 4$ , $D B = 6$ and $D E = 6$ . What is the length of $\overline{B C}$ ? (Note: The figure is not necessarily drawn to scale.)

Triangle ABC with segment DE parallel to BC

Figure not drawn to scale.

Show answer & explanation

Answer: D

1. Because $\overline{D E} ∥ \overline{B C}$ , corresponding angles are equal and $△ A D E \sim △ A B C$ .
2. $A B = A D + D B = 4 + 6 = 10$ .
3. Set up the proportion: $\frac{B C}{D E} = \frac{A B}{A D}$ , so $\frac{B C}{6} = \frac{10}{4}$ .
4. $B C = 6 \cdot \frac{10}{4} = 15$ .

$9$ : Uses the ratio $A D : D B = 4 : 6$ ; $D B$ is only part of side $\overline{A B}$ , so the scale factor is $A B : A D = 10 : 4$ .

$10$ : Adds $A D$ to $D E$ ; similar figures scale by multiplication, not by adding lengths.

$12$ : Adds $D B$ to $D E$ , again treating the enlargement as an addition.

$15$ : Correct. $△ A D E \sim △ A B C$ with $\frac{A B}{A D} = \frac{10}{4} = \frac{5}{2}$ , so $B C = \frac{5}{2} \cdot 6 = 15$ .

A segment parallel to one side of a triangle cuts off a similar triangle; compare whole side to whole side.

Question 13

A 10-foot ladder leans against a vertical wall and makes a $6 0^{\circ}$ angle with the level ground, as shown. How high up the wall, $h$ , does the top of the ladder reach? (Note: The figure is not necessarily drawn to scale.)

Ladder against a wall at 60 degrees

Figure not drawn to scale.

Show answer & explanation

Answer: C

1. The wall, ground and ladder form a 30-60-90 triangle with hypotenuse 10.
2. Sides are in the ratio $1 : 3 : 2$ , so the short leg is $10 \div 2 = 5$ .
3. The height is the leg opposite $6 0^{\circ}$ : $53$ ft. (Equivalently, $h = 10 sin 6 0^{\circ} = 10 \cdot \frac{3}{2}$ .)

$5$ ft: This is the shorter leg, which lies along the ground opposite the $3 0^{\circ}$ angle.

$52$ ft: Uses the 45-45-90 ratio $1 : 1 : 2$ instead of the 30-60-90 ratio.

$53$ ft: Correct. The ladder is the hypotenuse (10), so the short leg is 5 and the leg opposite $6 0^{\circ}$ is $53$ ft.

$103$ ft: Multiplies the hypotenuse by $3$ ; the long leg is $3$ times the short leg, not the hypotenuse.

In a 30-60-90 triangle the sides are x, x√3 and 2x; the longer leg is opposite the 60° angle.

Mathematical Reasoning

Question 14

A lab stores six chemicals, P, Q, R, S, T and U, in two cabinets with exactly three chemicals in each. P and Q cannot be in the same cabinet, R and S must be in the same cabinet, and T cannot be in the same cabinet as R. Which chemical MUST be in the same cabinet as U?

Show answer & explanation

Answer: A

1. R and S share a cabinet; T is in the other one.
2. Third chemical with R and S: P, Q or U.
3. If U: the other cabinet is P, Q, T, but P and Q cannot be together. Not allowed.
4. So the arrangements are {R, S, P} / {Q, T, U} or {R, S, Q} / {P, T, U}.
5. In both, U is with T.

T: Correct. The R–S cabinet needs a third chemical that is not T; if it were U, P and Q would be together with T. So the third is P or Q, and the other cabinet is always T, U and the remaining one of P or Q.

Q: Q can be with R and S, leaving P, T and U together, so Q is not always with U.

S: S is always with R, and the cabinet with R and S can never hold U (see the steps).

P: P can be with R and S, leaving Q, T and U together, so P is not always with U.

In grouping problems, start with the fixed pair, list the few possible arrangements, and see what is common to all of them.

Question 15

In the pattern shown, Stage $n$ is an $n \times n$ square of white tiles surrounded by a border one tile wide of gray tiles. In the stage that has exactly 60 gray tiles, how many white tiles are there? (Note: The figure is not necessarily drawn to scale.)

Tile pattern

Gray tiles form the border; white tiles fill the inside. Figure not drawn to scale.

Show answer & explanation

Answer: B

1. From the figure: Stage 1 has 8 gray tiles, Stage 2 has 12, Stage 3 has 16, so each stage adds 4.
2. Formula: $(n + 2)^{2} - n^{2} = 4 n + 4$ . Check: $n = 1$ gives 8.
3. $4 n + 4 = 60 \Rightarrow 4 n = 56 \Rightarrow n = 14$ .
4. White tiles: $1 4^{2} = 196$ .

169: Writes the gray count as $8 + 4 n$ (forgetting that Stage 1 already has the 8), which gives $n = 13$ .

196: Correct. Gray tiles number $(n + 2)^{2} - n^{2} = 4 n + 4$ ; $4 n + 4 = 60$ gives $n = 14$ , so there are $1 4^{2} = 196$ white tiles.

225: Uses $4 n$ gray tiles, leaving out the 4 corner tiles, which gives $n = 15$ .

256: This is the total number of tiles, $1 6^{2}$ , gray and white together.

For a growing pattern, write the count as a formula in $n$ , check it against the first stages, then solve for $n$ .

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