The New Sudoku Players' Forum

[tarek]

This was fun to do ...

http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/magazine/7773974.stm

I scored 14/15 in 7 1/2 minutes ...

tarek

[Cec]

Well done tarek - you're a very clever person. An interesting exercise even though I only got 9/15 and ran over time. Still trying to work out how to find the correct answers.

It's now one hour into Xmas day and I was hoping Santa might lend me a hand but now to tired to stay awake.

Cec

[Bigtone53]

Cec,

Answers and explanations here

Happy Christmas. We still have a few hours to go here in the UK.

[Cec]

Thanks Bigtone 53. I failed on questions 4,5,6,7,8 and 15. I hope these numbers don't represent the scores of Australia's top six batsmen in tomorrow's "Blockbuster" Boxing Day Test against South Africa.

Cec

[Smythe Dakota]

I cheated. I sat and stared at all the questions before I started the timer. (But I didn't write anything down, or use any other tool such as another computer program.) That meant I had to remember my reasoning on each question after I started the timer. Doing it that way, I scored 15 out of 15 in 3 minutes 34 seconds.

Had I not cheated, I'm pretty sure I would have scored 13 out of 15 before my time ran out. I would have omitted the only difficult ones, the two code-word questions, hoping to get back to them. But it took me at least 20 minutes of staring time before I even figured out the rules of the game for those two. A student who already knew what that code-word game was about probably could have solved those two questions in a minute or two.

Bill Smythe

[Smythe Dakota]

.... I failed on questions X,X,X,X,X and 15. ....

Those number-sequence puzzles are annoying. There are invariably multiple solutions.

For example, what is the next number in the following sequence?

1, 3, 5, 7, __

The answer: 8. Those are the numbers with the letter E in their names.

Bill Smythe

[Cec]

.... I failed on questions X,X,X,X,X and 15. ....

Perhaps I celebrated too much on Xmas day but I'm confused with your above interpretation Bill after I stated I failed on questions 4,5,6,7,8 and 15.

Also Bill, interesting observations on your part to identify an alternative solution to this different number-sequence puzzle.

Cec

[Smythe Dakota]

Of the six questions you say you missed, only question 15 was a number-sequence puzzle, and I wanted to comment on number-sequence puzzles, so I X'd out the others.

Bill Smythe

[Cec]

Thanks Bill.
Cec

[Bigtone53]

Those number-sequence puzzles are annoying. There are invariably multiple solutions.

Correct. Nothing like a good bit of Wittgenstein over Christmas to keep the spirits up and his finite rule paradox proved that given three numbers in a series, you can always find a justification, or a rule, for any number to be the fourth term in the series.

[Smythe Dakota]

I think that's true no matter how many numbers there are in the original sequence. Given N different points in the XY plane, as long as no two have the same X coordinate, there exists an N-1 degree polynomial (Y as a function of X) whose graph goes through all N points.

Bill Smythe

[tarek]

Well done tarek - you're a very clever person.

I'm glad you had fun going through it. I can only imagine the horror on those 11 year-olds sitting the actual exam

BTW, My mistake was not recognising gilt as a word (very clever indeed )

tarek

[Smythe Dakota]

It sounds like a typically British word. You were at a disadvantage.

Bill Smythe

[Cec]

Well done tarek - you're a very clever person.

I'm glad you had fun going through it. I can only imagine the horror on those 11 year-olds sitting the actual exam

BTW, My mistake was not recognising gilt as a word (very clever indeed )

tarek

Yes, I did enjoy doing this test even though I only correctly answered 9 of the 15 questions. I emailed the test to one of my local golfing mates - he only got three correct and suggested future tests should be easier

Giving this test to eleven-year olds is certainly a tough assignment.

Cec

[udosuk]

For example, what is the next number in the following sequence?

1, 3, 5, 7, __

The answer: 8. Those are the numbers with the letter E in their names.

Another one of interest:

1, 3, 5, 7, 9, __, __, 15, 17, ...

What are the 2 missing numbers in the sequence?

Answer: 13 & 11 (in that order). These are the binary formats of odd numbers reversed then converted back into decimal formats. For example the one after 17 is 25 (19 -> 10011 -> 11001 -> 25).