The "Which Of The Following Question", continued

Let's set x = 2 and y = 3.

Applying these numbers to the stem, we find:

Testing the choices, beginning with Choice (E), we find:

Choice (E): x = 2. This matches our target number.

If you were very short on time you might stop here and choose E as a reasonable guess, even knowing that when you're picking numbers for variables in the answer choice problems you can have more than one choice match. In a time crunch situation, it would still be a good guess.

However, if you had plenty of time, OR if this was an early question, you would go on to check the remaining choices just as you would normally do when picking numbers for variables in the answer choices problems. In that case it wouldn't help that you'd started with Choice (E) instead of (A), but it wouldn't hurt either. Which means that it makes sense to always start with E on "Which of the following" questions, because then you've ingrained a habit that you don't have to think about on test day!