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PR 2020 (Casual and Word) Author
Posts: 349
 
Location: India | prasanna16391 - 2020-05-24 5:12 AM
I always dread this round most in the PR series (mostly something I should work on improving), but this was super fun, and also had a very neat theme. I loved how the thematic sets represented the correct difficulty too for the most part.
Thanks Prasanna, for most of the puzzles I used the grid size to adjust the difficulty. The larger grid sizes also allow to introduce more subtle logic for solving. |
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Posts: 17
Location: Hungary | | What was your opinion of the distribution of easy/hard puzzles? | Just right | | | What did you think about the puzzle quality of the test? | Fairly Nice | | | Which set of puzzles did you like the most? | Double Cross | | | What was your opinion about the answer key extraction? | Mostly perfect answer keys | | | Of the puzzles you solved/attempted, how well did the point values reflect the difficulty? | Most puzzles were worth the right amount | | | What was your opinion of the booklet formatting and printing? | Just right | |
I am quite inexperiences in these type of puzzles but I managed to finish some of the hardest puzzles within the time limit besides easy ones. |
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PR 2020 (Casual and Word) Author
Posts: 349
Location: India | Thanks Rohan.
Agreed on the instant grading. Till now there is'nt any full score without mistakes.
We tried to adjust the puzzle difficulty for the test. Word Nurikabe was introduced later to lend some balance.
Will post the slightly harder puzzles after the test. |
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Posts: 55
Location: India | | What was your opinion of the distribution of easy/hard puzzles? | Just right | | | What did you think about the puzzle quality of the test? | Very nice | | | Which set of puzzles did you like the most? | Word Division | | | What was your opinion about the answer key extraction? | Perfect answer keys | | | Of the puzzles you solved/attempted, how well did the point values reflect the difficulty? | Most puzzles were worth the right amount | |
Fantastic test! Even though i did not come close to finishing, the feeling of having attempted a good number of puzzles brings some satisfaction. The logic in the puzzles were very clean and thorough. Favourites were Word Division 2, Mastermind 2 and 3.
Not being able to complete the Word Nurikabe 6 ptr and the 9 ptr Letter scrabble was a disappointment. Look forward to finishing the set later.
Thanks Amit, Great puzzles! |
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Posts: 30
Location: France | | What was your opinion of the distribution of easy/hard puzzles? | Just right | | | What did you think about the puzzle quality of the test? | Fairly Nice | | | Which set of puzzles did you like the most? | Letter Scrabble | | | What was your opinion about the answer key extraction? | Answer keys could have been better | | | Of the puzzles you solved/attempted, how well did the point values reflect the difficulty? | Many puzzles were worth too much or too little | | | What was your opinion of the booklet formatting and printing? | Just right | |
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PR 2020 (Casual and Word) Author
Posts: 349
Location: India | Thanks Pranav. |
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PR 2020 (Casual and Word) Author
Posts: 349
Location: India | Grizix - 2020-05-24 11:05 PM
Hi Grizix I respect you opinion on the puzzle quality and point distribution.
However I felt the answer keys for any online test cannot get simpler than they were for this round.
Do you have any specific suggestions on improving the answer keys? |
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SM 2020 (Math) Author
Posts: 417
Location: India | | What was your opinion of the distribution of easy/hard puzzles? | Too many hard puzzles | | | What did you think about the puzzle quality of the test? | Very nice | | | Which set of puzzles did you like the most? | Letter Weights | | | What was your opinion about the answer key extraction? | Perfect answer keys | | | Of the puzzles you solved/attempted, how well did the point values reflect the difficulty? | Most puzzles were worth the right amount | | | What was your opinion of the booklet formatting and printing? | Just right | |
That was a beautiful and high quality set of puzzles. It was frustrating at the end to have completed the Word division (11 pointer) but then having the timer run out before answer key entry.
I lost faaaaaaaaaaaaar too much time on the Letter Scrabble having put HARD in place of HERD and HERD in place of HARD and the ERA in R3C1-3. I checked and double checked to find where my error existed ?!.It took me a despair and agony filled 10 minutes to realize that the words are not connected in the above pattern.So swapped HERD and HARD and put the ERA in between.Lost a lot of time in the above process.Could have hit 70 barring this skirmish.
Very interesting set of puzzles.Would love to finish the rest later. Thanks a lot Amit! |
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| | What was your opinion of the distribution of easy/hard puzzles? | Just right | | | What did you think about the puzzle quality of the test? | Very nice | | | Which set of puzzles did you like the most? | Letter Scrabble | | | What was your opinion about the answer key extraction? | Perfect answer keys | | | Of the puzzles you solved/attempted, how well did the point values reflect the difficulty? | Most puzzles were worth the right amount | | | What was your opinion of the booklet formatting and printing? | Just right | |
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| | What was your opinion of the distribution of easy/hard puzzles? | Just right | | | What did you think about the puzzle quality of the test? | Very nice | | | Which set of puzzles did you like the most? | Word Division | | | What was your opinion about the answer key extraction? | Answer keys could have been better | | | Of the puzzles you solved/attempted, how well did the point values reflect the difficulty? | Most puzzles were worth the right amount | | | What was your opinion of the booklet formatting and printing? | Just right | |
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Typed Logic Author
Posts: 241
Location: Indonesia | | What was your opinion of the distribution of easy/hard puzzles? | Just right | | | What did you think about the puzzle quality of the test? | Very nice | | | Which set of puzzles did you like the most? | Curve Data | | | What was your opinion about the answer key extraction? | Perfect answer keys | | | Of the puzzles you solved/attempted, how well did the point values reflect the difficulty? | Most puzzles were worth the right amount | | | What was your opinion of the booklet formatting and printing? | Just right | |
Overall a very nice test. The theming is excellent (although it's questionable that the curve data has "easy" worth 5 points and "medium" worth 4 points...) and the puzzles themselves were mostly nice.
Matchsticks is a very weird genre, and I'm not sure it's logical. I'm sure most of the penalties by people are in this genre. One good thing about commonly encountered puzzles (Nikoli-style etc) is that you can verify your answer easily; here, verifying your answer to Matchsticks requires you to practically solve the whole thing again. (All optimization puzzles fall in this bucket too.) Not that it's a bad idea to include them, but you need to be really careful with how you do it. I'd say Matchsticks 2 is the most difficult puzzle in the test; Matchsticks 3 is in fact fairly easy (you have enough room to make practically any number you want, so getting a proof is really quick).
Some minor quibbles: Easy as Snake doesn't need the word separation (spaces are irrelevant for the puzzle), but it's fine. For Word Division, with how many native English words are used, I largely intuited the solves by trying to read some reasonable words I can see from the board; people not used to English won't be able to do this.
Double Cross turned out to be particularly enjoyable, compared to my first reaction of "huh, won't this be really trivial?"
Edited by chaotic_iak 2020-05-25 11:42 PM
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Posts: 187
Location: New Zealand | .
Edited by kiwijam 2020-05-26 6:22 AM
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Posts: 187
Location: New Zealand | rakesh_rai - 2020-05-22 6:56 PM
kiwijam - 2020-05-22 2:20 AM
With Matchsticks, sometimes you can get a lower number by moving less than N matchsticks. I assume this is ok?
For example: N=2, start="70". With 1 move I can get to 18, but if 2 matches have to be in new places then the answer will be higher.
Exactly N matchsticks need to be moved. Solution obtained by moving "Less than N matchsticks" will be invalid. I hope this clarifies.
Well that wasn't true.
The solution to #3 requires moving 4 matchsticks, not 7, and is therefore invalid according to your statement!
I spotted the 'obvious' answer (smallest number using 23 matchsticks) immediately, then spent a long time looking for larger numbers that needed more moves.
At least with instant grading I eventually gave up and put it in just in case I could move on. |
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Typed Logic Author
Posts: 241
Location: Indonesia | kiwijam - 2020-05-26 9:22 AM
Well that wasn't true.
The solution to #3 requires moving 4 matchsticks, not 7, and is therefore invalid according to your statement!
I spotted the 'obvious' answer (smallest number using 23 matchsticks) immediately, then spent a long time looking for larger numbers that needed more moves.
At least with instant grading I eventually gave up and put it in just in case I could move on.
There is a solution that gives the same number that moves exactly 7 matchsticks. It leaves a gap between some digits. |
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SM 2020 (Converse and Odd Even) Author
Posts: 85
Location: India | | What was your opinion of the distribution of easy/hard puzzles? | Just right | | | What did you think about the puzzle quality of the test? | Very nice | | | Which set of puzzles did you like the most? | Word Nurikabe | | | What was your opinion about the answer key extraction? | Perfect answer keys | | | Of the puzzles you solved/attempted, how well did the point values reflect the difficulty? | Most puzzles were worth the right amount | | | What was your opinion of the booklet formatting and printing? | Just right | |
Thanks Amit for this enjoyable set! Word puzzles were very nice. In casuals, I did a blunder in mastermind 3 and lost a lot of time. My favorites puzzles were: word nurikabe and curve data. |
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Posts: 7
Location: South Korea | | What was your opinion of the distribution of easy/hard puzzles? | Just right | | | What did you think about the puzzle quality of the test? | Fairly Nice | | | Which set of puzzles did you like the most? | Word Division | | | What was your opinion about the answer key extraction? | Mostly perfect answer keys | | | Of the puzzles you solved/attempted, how well did the point values reflect the difficulty? | Most puzzles were worth the right amount | | | What was your opinion of the booklet formatting and printing? | Just right | |
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Posts: 225
Location: Thailand | You could reach the answer with 7 moves (or any n really) if some moves were transpositions. (Ie. Keep moving the D around until you have 4 moves left). I agree that it's a questionable inclusion.
A possible improvement would be making sure that the solution is reached by the minimum number of moves. |
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PR 2020 (Casual and Word) Author
Posts: 349
Location: India | kishy72 - 2020-05-25 4:06 PM
Very interesting set of puzzles.Would love to finish the rest later. Thanks a lot Amit!
Thanks Kishore.
I hope you are encouraged to solve more of these puzzle types in the future. |
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PR 2020 (Evergreens) Author
Posts: 36
Location: India | | What was your opinion of the distribution of easy/hard puzzles? | Too many medium difficult puzzles | | | What did you think about the puzzle quality of the test? | Very nice | | | Which set of puzzles did you like the most? | Word Division | | | What was your opinion about the answer key extraction? | Perfect answer keys | | | Of the puzzles you solved/attempted, how well did the point values reflect the difficulty? | Most puzzles were worth the right amount | | | What was your opinion of the booklet formatting and printing? | Just right | |
Thank you so much for this wonderful set, Amit!
I was dreading the casual and word round since the week where that I missed the object placement round, and realised that this round will be crucial to getting that 4/6 round base points. I was aiming to score about 30, so I am quite happy with the number of puzzles I could logically solve!
Absolutely loved the Easy, Medium Hard themeing, the cute easter egg answer key on the last puzzle, and the word puzzles were all very logical and enjoyable!
I think I spent a LOT of time trying to figure out puzzle 6 (mastermind), and I don't think I understand i even now :P, but other than that it was smooth sailing for me.
Loved the round! |
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| | What was your opinion of the distribution of easy/hard puzzles? | Just right | | | What did you think about the puzzle quality of the test? | Very nice | | | Which set of puzzles did you like the most? | Word Division | | | What was your opinion about the answer key extraction? | Answer keys could have been better | | | Of the puzzles you solved/attempted, how well did the point values reflect the difficulty? | Most puzzles were worth the right amount | | | What was your opinion of the booklet formatting and printing? | Just right | |
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PR 2020 (Casual and Word) Author
Posts: 349
Location: India | chaotic_iak - 2020-05-25 11:39 PM
Overall a very nice test. The theming is excellent (although it's questionable that the curve data has "easy" worth 5 points and "medium" worth 4 points...) and the puzzles themselves were mostly nice.
Thanks Ivan.
It was my first attempt at creating curve data puzzles. I will need a lot more experience before I can have sufficient expertise over adusting the level of difficulty for curve data. In fact both of the original puzzles submitted for EASY and MEDIUM turned out to be non-unique. But thanks to Rakesh's diligent testing I was able to fix it before the test.
Matchsticks is a very weird genre, and I'm not sure it's logical. I'm sure most of the penalties by people are in this genre. One good thing about commonly encountered puzzles (Nikoli-style etc) is that you can verify your answer easily; here, verifying your answer to Matchsticks requires you to practically solve the whole thing again. (All optimization puzzles fall in this bucket too.) Not that it's a bad idea to include them, but you need to be really careful with how you do it. I'd say Matchsticks 2 is the most difficult puzzle in the test; Matchsticks 3 is in fact fairly easy (you have enough room to make practically any number you want, so getting a proof is really quick).
I completely understanding the feeling you describe where the solver is not sure if the answer is correct or not. However within optimization problems too there are several types of problems and I tried to present it as close to a constrain optimization problem as possible.
I think optimization puzzles should also have some representation. We had an entire round of these in WPC 2017.
For Word Division, with how many native English words are used, I largely intuited the solves by trying to read some reasonable words I can see from the board; people not used to English won't be able to do this.
This is a good point that you bring up about the Word Division puzzles. I was thinking about using foreign language words (words for Easy, Medium, Hard in different languages). But that theme was already used in the Mastermind puzzles, so eventually I went with synonyms within English. |
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PR 2020 (Casual and Word) Author
Posts: 349
Location: India | harmeet - 2020-05-26 8:55 AM
Thanks Amit for this enjoyable set! Word puzzles were very nice.
Thanks Harmeet |
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PR 2020 (Casual and Word) Author
Posts: 349
Location: India | tamz29 - 2020-05-27 3:25 AM
You could reach the answer with 7 moves (or any n really) if some moves were transpositions. (Ie. Keep moving the D around until you have 4 moves left). I agree that it's a questionable inclusion.
A possible improvement would be making sure that the solution is reached by the minimum number of moves.
After reading the discussion regarding the Matchsticks puzzle I think I missed a couple of aspects during the test.
I think the rule that each matchstick can be moved exactly once needs to be specified explicitly. Otherwise with transpositions you are right that the target can be achieved in any number of moves.
I had a specific solution in mind which like Ivan pointed out can be achieved in exactly seven moves.
In hindsight there is also room for improvement of the answer key which should possibly be asking for information about which matchsticks are being moved and to which location.
Without this kind of answer key and the explicit rule to restrict transposition I agree with your recommendation about asking for a solution which is reached by the minimum number of moves.
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PR 2020 (Casual and Word) Author
Posts: 349
Location: India | priyambhushan - 2020-05-27 1:56 PM
Thank you so much for this wonderful set, Amit!
Thanks Priyam. |
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PR 2020 (MII and Regions) Author
Posts: 48
Location: India | | What was your opinion of the distribution of easy/hard puzzles? | Just right | | | What did you think about the puzzle quality of the test? | Very nice | | | Which set of puzzles did you like the most? | Word Division | | | What was your opinion about the answer key extraction? | Perfect answer keys | | | Of the puzzles you solved/attempted, how well did the point values reflect the difficulty? | Most puzzles were worth the right amount | | | What was your opinion of the booklet formatting and printing? | Just right | |
I really enjoyed the word puzzles, those were the fun part of the contest. Also, the casual puzzles were fascinating because time taken to solve them was non-linear :D |
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Casual and Word - 22nd - 27th May 2020 - Puzzle Ramayan & IPC Qualifier 2020
