How do LSAT Point at Issue questions work?

LSAT Point at Issue questions: what two speakers actually disagree about

Last updated August 13, 2026

A Point at Issue question shows two speakers and asks what they disagree about. Stems read "the dialogue most strongly supports the claim that they disagree about whether" or ask about the point at issue between them. A rarer variant asks what they AGREE on; the method is identical with the last step flipped.

The two-part test that settles it

For each answer, ask two questions in order. First: does speaker one have a view on this? Second: does speaker two have a view on this? Only if both are yes do you ask the third question — do those views conflict?

Nearly every wrong answer dies at question one or two. The single most common trap is a statement one speaker clearly addresses and the other simply never mentions. It feels like disagreement because only one side is on record, and silence is not a position.

Disagreeing about a fact, not a feeling

Two speakers can reach opposite conclusions from the same facts and still not disagree about what the correct answer states. Say one argues a museum should extend its hours because attendance is rising; the other replies that the staffing cost would outrun the extra ticket revenue. They disagree about whether extending hours is worthwhile. They do NOT disagree about whether attendance is rising — the second speaker never contested it.

That distinction is the whole question type. The credited answer names the precise claim on which both went on record and landed on opposite sides.

How the wrong answers are built

Only one speaker addressed it. The dominant trap. Check both, every time.
Both addressed it and both AGREE. Correctly summarized, no conflict.
Neither addressed it. A reasonable inference about the topic that neither speaker made.
Too broad. Widens a narrow disagreement into a general one they never had.
Stated in the wrong direction. The right subject with the speakers' positions swapped — easy to miss when reading quickly.

The habit: before the answers, write one short sentence for each speaker's position. Two lines of scratch. Then run the two-part test on each choice against those lines rather than against your memory of the dialogue.

Try one

A real Point at Issue question, from the bank subscribers practice on

Okonjo: The forestry service should widen the fuel breaks around the valley towns before next summer. Every hectare cleared of understory is a hectare where a crown fire drops to the ground and can be fought directly, and the last three fires that reached a town were stopped along breaks half as wide as the ones I am proposing. Clearing is slow work, and if it does not begin now the breaks will not be ready when the season turns. Feld: Wider breaks do help crews hold a line, and I would not oppose widening them where the terrain allows. But the service has one clearing crew and one budget, and every week that crew spends on breaks is a week it does not spend thinning the dense stands upslope, which is where the fires that threaten the towns build their intensity in the first place. Given what the service can actually do before next summer, the thinning has the stronger claim.

Okonjo and Feld disagree over whether

Awider fuel breaks make it easier for fire crews to hold a line against an advancing crown fireBwidening the fuel breaks is the best use of the forestry service's clearing capacity before next summerCthinning the dense stands upslope would reduce the intensity of the fires that come to threaten the valley townsDthe forestry service should receive a larger budget for fire preparationEfires that reached valley towns in the past were stopped by fuel breaks

Pick one to see the explanation. No account, nothing to dismiss.

Sources

LSAC — Types of LSAT Questions

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