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Casual and Word - 11th-15th May- Puzzle Ramayan and IPC Qualifier58 posts • Page 1 of 3 • 1 2 3
@ 2018-05-12 2:41 PM (#24909 - in reply to #24866) (#24909) Top

An LMI player



An LMI player posted @ 2018-05-12 2:41 PM

 What did you think about the puzzle quality of the test? Average
 Which set of puzzles did you like the most? Shortest Distances
 What was your opinion about the answer key extraction? Answer keys were horrible
 What was your opinion of the booklet formatting and printing? Just right


@ 2018-05-12 3:06 PM (#24910 - in reply to #24909) (#24910) Top

rakesh_rai




Posts: 774
500100100202020
Country : India

rakesh_rai posted @ 2018-05-12 3:06 PM

An LMI player - 2018-05-12 2:41 PM


Can you elaborate which answer keys were horrible, so that we can work on improving on it in future.
@ 2018-05-12 5:01 PM (#24911 - in reply to #24866) (#24911) Top

EoHeongMat



Posts: 7

Country : South Korea

EoHeongMat posted @ 2018-05-12 5:01 PM

 What was your opinion about the answer key extraction? Answer keys could have been better


@ 2018-05-12 5:43 PM (#24912 - in reply to #24866) (#24912) Top

Gyuszi13



Posts: 17

Country : Hungary

Gyuszi13 posted @ 2018-05-12 5:43 PM

 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? Arithmetic Square
 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


@ 2018-05-12 8:34 PM (#24914 - in reply to #24866) (#24914) Top

Kithyane



Posts: 49
2020
Country : France

Kithyane posted @ 2018-05-12 8:34 PM

 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? Double Letter Scrabble
 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


@ 2018-05-13 12:16 PM (#24915 - in reply to #24866) (#24915) Top

kishy72



Posts: 417
100100100100
Country : India

kishy72 posted @ 2018-05-13 12:16 PM

 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? Below Average
 What was your opinion about the answer key extraction? Answer keys were horrible
 Of the puzzles you solved/attempted, how well did the point values reflect the difficulty? Most puzzles were worth too much or too little


Worthless test and simply waste of time.
@ 2018-05-13 12:37 PM (#24916 - in reply to #24904) (#24916) Top

chaotic_iak




Posts: 241
1001002020
Country : Indonesia

chaotic_iak posted @ 2018-05-13 12:37 PM

rakesh_rai - 2018-05-12 12:00 PM

chaotic_iak - 2018-05-11 10:36 PM

I think the counting puzzles need some way for us to be sure of our answer, since unlike other puzzles, if you make a mistake there you essentially have to redo it. (That also means counting puzzles should probably get more points.)

I agree that counting is tedious - for everyone. The intention was that participants solve it completely logically (actually count the possibilities). That is the reason "close" answers were not considered correct. I think the points for counting puzzles are correct. Possibly #3 could have one more point.

You can suggest if you think there is a good way to achieve the above objective - "some way for us to be sure of the answer"


Oh, I definitely solved them all logically, but it's *extremely* prone to miscount, which is the problem. If you get a single miscount somewhere, you must check your whole work, essentially redoing it; in more standard puzzles, you can scan for the error and find it quickly (even if fixing it might be harder).
@ 2018-05-13 12:39 PM (#24917 - in reply to #24906) (#24917) Top

chaotic_iak




Posts: 241
1001002020
Country : Indonesia

chaotic_iak posted @ 2018-05-13 12:39 PM

rakesh_rai - 2018-05-12 2:47 PM

chaotic_iak - 2018-05-11 10:36 PM

I felt I got stuck in Puzzle 12 for a very long time; 9 minutes for 2 points doesn't seem correct. The other puzzles felt they were worth the right amount, though.

This puzzle was different from the other two but, in essence, it only needed the remaining Os (for OBOE and OCTOPUS) to be correctly determined. (Two out of five possible places). After that it was easy to complete. During testing we found this to be roughly of the same level of difficulty as the other two. However I have observed the preference for 13 and 14 over 12, for most participants so far. So, post-event, its possible that it may actually be slightly (~1 point) undervalued.


I noticed that but had trouble locating where those two words could be; it took me ~8 of those 9 minutes. That's why I thought it was undervalued.
@ 2018-05-13 8:30 PM (#24919 - in reply to #24866) (#24919) Top

An LMI player



An LMI player posted @ 2018-05-13 8:30 PM

 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? Scrabble
 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? Many puzzles were worth too much or too little
 What was your opinion of the booklet formatting and printing? Just right


@ 2018-05-13 8:52 PM (#24920 - in reply to #24866) (#24920) Top

WA1729




Posts: 60
202020
Country : United States

WA1729 posted @ 2018-05-13 8:52 PM

 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? 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


Thank you!

Favorite Puzzles:

9 Curve Data
14 Regionless Meandering Words
15 Scrabble
17 Letter Scrabble
18 Double Letter Scrabble
@ 2018-05-13 10:19 PM (#24921 - in reply to #24866) (#24921) Top

Gotroch



Posts: 83
20202020
Country : Czech Republic

Gotroch posted @ 2018-05-13 10:19 PM

 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? 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? Many puzzles were worth too much or too little
 What was your opinion of the booklet formatting and printing? Just right


@ 2018-05-14 2:25 AM (#24922 - in reply to #24866) (#24922) Top

bob



Posts: 59
2020
Country : United States

bob posted @ 2018-05-14 2:25 AM

 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? Average
 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 too much or too little
 What was your opinion of the booklet formatting and printing? Just right


I'll be honest--this is my least favorite category even before starting. To me, "casual" puzzles seem to me to be all about guessing, trial and error, counting and hoping, and more tiral and error. So I was really looking forward to the word puzzles which I thought would at least be logical but found them staggeringly difficult. I started with the last page. Missing Letters OK, kind of fun. Word Search I spent almost 40 minutes on a 2-point puzzle and could not even finish it. Several possibile locations for many of the words leads to dozens and dozens of combinations to avoid overlap. I could not find the right one and finally gave up. Final Double Letter Scrabble another 30 minutes trying to place my last word LATUR to no avail. May be just a bad round for me but very discouraging.
@ 2018-05-14 12:28 PM (#24923 - in reply to #24866) (#24923) Top

pranavmanu



Posts: 55
2020
Country : India

pranavmanu posted @ 2018-05-14 12:28 PM

 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? 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? Many puzzles were worth too much or too little
 What was your opinion of the booklet formatting and printing? Just right


@ 2018-05-14 3:55 PM (#24924 - in reply to #24866) (#24924) Top

rob



Posts: 170
100202020
Country : Germany

rob posted @ 2018-05-14 3:55 PM

There were some really nice puzzles in here, but the misleading point distribution broke the contest for me. (To a large part I feel I should just have realized this and not sunk so much time into the undervalued puzzles.)

Edited by rob 2018-05-14 3:55 PM
@ 2018-05-14 6:49 PM (#24925 - in reply to #24866) (#24925) Top

Para



Posts: 315
100100100
Country : The Netherlands

Para posted @ 2018-05-14 6:49 PM

 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? Fairly Nice
 Which set of puzzles did you like the most? Double Letter Scrabble
 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


This seemed much harder than the previous sets. It required a lot of right insight from the start to even begin too many puzzles. I find this slows solving down a lot more in a full set as it is harder to get into a solving flow. It also leads to problems with point values as they can severely increase solving times if you don't get it from the start. It's always hard to rate these puzzles though.

Also, I will never learn how to properly count, no matter how hard I try.
@ 2018-05-14 11:52 PM (#24926 - in reply to #24866) (#24926) Top

rvarun



Posts: 268
100100202020
Country : India

rvarun posted @ 2018-05-14 11:52 PM

 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? 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


Thanks Rakesh and LMI for the high quality test. Though the puzzles were difficult on the whole for a PR round, I found the puzzles which I solved to have a logical start or logical solve.

This may be the round for everyone who dont have to remember confusing and contradicting rules of many other puzzles. Overall a good set and nice experience.
@ 2018-05-15 12:03 AM (#24927 - in reply to #24866) (#24927) Top

misko



Posts: 11

Country : Germany

misko posted @ 2018-05-15 12:03 AM

 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? Average
 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? Many puzzles were worth too much or too little
 What was your opinion of the booklet formatting and printing? Just right


@ 2018-05-15 1:40 AM (#24928 - in reply to #24866) (#24928) Top

JonaS2010



Posts: 22
20
Country : Germany

JonaS2010 posted @ 2018-05-15 1:40 AM

 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? Average
 Which set of puzzles did you like the most? Double Letter Scrabble
 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


So... the guessing round. It was clear from the start that this wouldn't be a strong round for me, as I hate casual puzzles and have only a mild interest in word puzzles. Some puzzles that I attempted during the test were ok, with double letter scrabble #18 being the most memorable one for me. Somewhere in the middle of the test, however, I lost interest in the puzzles and the round, and got tired of all the intuition-based word placements.
Certainly my least favourite round so far :(
@ 2018-05-15 12:24 PM (#24929 - in reply to #24866) (#24929) Top

An LMI player



An LMI player posted @ 2018-05-15 12:24 PM

 What did you think about the puzzle quality of the test? Fairly Nice
 Which set of puzzles did you like the most? Shortest Distances
 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


@ 2018-05-15 12:30 PM (#24930 - in reply to #24915) (#24930) Top

rakesh_rai




Posts: 774
500100100202020
Country : India

rakesh_rai posted @ 2018-05-15 12:30 PM

kishy72 - 2018-05-13 12:16 PM

Worthless test and simply waste of time.

Can you elaborate which answer keys were horrible, so that we can work on improving on it in future.
@ 2018-05-15 8:10 PM (#24932 - in reply to #24866) (#24932) Top

An LMI player



An LMI player posted @ 2018-05-15 8:10 PM

 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? 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? Many puzzles were worth too much or too little
 What was your opinion of the booklet formatting and printing? Just right


@ 2018-05-16 12:19 AM (#24933 - in reply to #24866) (#24933) Top

mstang




Posts: 74
202020
Country : United States

mstang posted @ 2018-05-16 12:19 AM

 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? Fairly Nice
 Which set of puzzles did you like the most? Scrabble
 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? Many puzzles were worth too much or too little
 What was your opinion of the booklet formatting and printing? Just right


@ 2018-05-16 2:03 AM (#24935 - in reply to #24866) (#24935) Top

ABcDexter



Posts: 47
2020
Country : India

ABcDexter posted @ 2018-05-16 2:03 AM

 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? Knight Paths
 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


@ 2018-05-16 2:57 AM (#24936 - in reply to #24866) (#24936) Top

ViP



Posts: 4

Country : Cuba

ViP posted @ 2018-05-16 2:57 AM

 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? Fairly Nice
 Which set of puzzles did you like the most? Missing Letters
 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? Many puzzles were worth too much or too little
 What was your opinion of the booklet formatting and printing? Just right


I think, in my opinion, this was a very hard test.

Not based in my low punctuation. I am not a fast solver, and I am better solving sudoku than other puzzles.
I participate in this contest to learn and enjoy with variations of puzzles. I solved only a few of them in time, and later when test over, I finish others, because the important thing is fun.

But, in this case, when I finish, and see Results score, I was surprised that NOBODY obtains 100 points or more as usually. Top 20 to 30 players (I don't say names, you know who they are) solved ALL puzzles in less than 90 minutes. But now NOBODY answers ALL 22 puzzles. I think that this means something.
Also, number of penalties is bigger than other tests. Almost everyone had one or more.

On the other hand, I think that puzzles 7 and 8 (Arithmetic Square) are a little variation with letters instead of numbers as usually. This is one of the puzzles I can solve, but in this case I couldn't. Instruction booklet example could have at least one letter, to prepare to these variation. It is expected that puzzles are bigger and hardest than examples, but not with a different variation, including that two puzzles are connected, like in this case. Is an interesting variation, but for me, hardest than 5 points.
Counting puzzles aren't difficult because logic to solve, but need time to counting all combinations. And in most cases they have a low punctuation. So, if test have several counting puzzles, time is less to solve, including time to write answers in submit page and send it. If you see results score, puzzles 2,3 and 5 had less % correct.

I can tell you Rakesh in a good cuban spanish: "se te fue la mano" (translated literally: your hand went away). This phrase means that you do something above normal.
Anyway I think that test quality is good including answer keys. But to solve in more that 90 minutes.
Thanks anyway Rakesh.

P.D. I solved Word search only after test over because I didn't see second SATE word diagonally on left side.
@ 2018-05-16 4:49 AM (#24937 - in reply to #24866) (#24937) Top

kiwijam



Posts: 181
10020202020
Country : New Zealand

kiwijam posted @ 2018-05-16 4:49 AM

I really don't like that the rules changed between the Instruction Book and Puzzle Book for Arithmetic Square. Three more sentences were added!

There are many non-native-English speakers doing these contests, who may have difficulty or questions.
I found these new rules slightly ambiguous also, if the two puzzles used the same code or different codes, although eventually decided that the reference table with only one empty column pointing to both sides answered that.

I appreciate you maybe didn't want to make another example puzzle, but I think it is better to have full rules and no example (USPC does this sometimes?) then rules and example for a similar type?
Casual and Word - 11th-15th May- Puzzle Ramayan and IPC Qualifier58 posts • Page 1 of 3 • 1 2 3
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