LSAT 79, Logic Game 1, Question 3, LSATHacks

When a question adds a new rule, you should see which rules already mention that variable. This question says H goes Monday. Here are the existing rules:

You can see that O is affected. If O is in, it must go before H. Since H is on Monday, O can’t go before it. Therefore, O is out.

There are six variables and five places. So if one is out, then the others are in. This means, for example, that L is in, and is Wednesday:

That leaves N, S and P left to place. And we know that N and S can’t go together. That means that they can’t go in 4 and 5. So, one of them must go in 4/5, and the other must go in 2. P will go in one of 4/5:

The comma indicates that P and N/S can go in either order. The N/S, S/N indicates that one of those letters goes in one spot, and another in the other spot.

This question asks what must be true. A is CORRECT. L must be Wednesday. So, we’ve done. a little bit too much work: we didn’t need to draw the final drawing. But, it is not a bad habit to draw diagrams out to the end, as many questions will require the extra steps. And once you practice, it doesn’t take much longer.

(By the way, the place to stop is when you’ve figured out what must be true. For instance, we could draw three diagrams, placing N in either 2, 4 or 5. But there’s no point to that. Instead, the diagram above lets us see that H and L must be placed in a certain area, and then gives us the options for where we can place N, S and P.)

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