Making hypotheticals quickly

[zainrizvi]

For those must be true/false questions where you just can't figure out what the "obvious" must be false answer is, hypos are the only real approach. What is the best/most efficient way to approach hypos?

I get tripped up with hypos because I realize there are so, so many ways this question can proceed. For the last question in PT64 (the bike game), for example, there were multiple times where you had to make these mini-decisions on how to proceed with the hypotheticals.. so if you put variable 1 in slot 2, this game wouldn't work -- however, you don't HAVE to put variable 1 in slot 2, now if you put it slot 3 it does end up working... making multiple hypotheticals for each answer choice is brutal. How can I speed up this process? I'm thinking I should focus more explicitly on the rules and their consequences, but still.. when you're doing a game it just seems like there's so many directions. Or is this just a characteristic of a hard game (hypos that can be so flexible)?

Thanks!

[ManhattanPrepLSAT1]

Good question! Hypotheticals can chew up a lot of time, but sometimes are the only means you have to work through the answer choices.

Lets start with Must be True. The best way here is to take the answer choice and check to see if it could be false. If (A) says that the variable must be in slot 2, you try to see if you can make it work somewhere else. Your instincts are right in that to do this, you'll need to stay close to the rules. You'll need to see if you could put the variable in slot 1, slot 3, slot 4, etc. The good news though is that as soon as you have a slot where the variable could go outside of slot 2, you can eliminate the answer choice. Something else to consider would be using your work from previous questions. Sometimes the work you did earlier would show that the variable need not be assigned to slot 2 and so can be much more quickly eliminated.

For Must be False questions, you could either create new hypotheticals where you attempt to show that the answer choice could be true, or you use your previous work to see if maybe you already have a solution where the answer choice could be true and so could be eliminated.

Hope that helps!