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WCPN — LMI December Puzzle Test — 19th to 21st December46 posts • Page 1 of 2 • 1 2
@ 2015-12-19 4:56 PM (#20281 - in reply to #20211) (#20281) Top

rakesh_rai




Posts: 774
500100100202020
Country : India

rakesh_rai posted @ 2015-12-19 4:56 PM

 How balanced do you think the puzzle types of this test were? Fairly balanced
 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
 How did you feel about the length / time limit for this test? A bit too many puzzles
 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


Nicely constructed puzzles. Of the attempted ones, I enjoyed the Japanese Sums-2 and Mathrax-2 the most.
@ 2015-12-19 9:29 PM (#20282 - in reply to #20211) (#20282) Top

achan1058



Posts: 80
20202020
Country : Canada

achan1058 posted @ 2015-12-19 9:29 PM

 How balanced do you think the puzzle types of this test were? Perfectly balanced
 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
 How did you feel about the length / time limit for this test? Just right
 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


Maybe it's just me, but lately I have been finding that the points distribution to be somewhat wacky in general.
@ 2015-12-19 9:32 PM (#20283 - in reply to #20211) (#20283) Top

An LMI player



An LMI player posted @ 2015-12-19 9:32 PM

 How balanced do you think the puzzle types of this test were? Fairly balanced
 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
 How did you feel about the length / time limit for this test? Just right
 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


@ 2015-12-19 10:37 PM (#20284 - in reply to #20211) (#20284) Top

rob



Posts: 170
100202020
Country : Germany

rob posted @ 2015-12-19 10:37 PM

 How balanced do you think the puzzle types of this test were? Perfectly balanced
 What was your opinion of the distribution of easy/hard puzzles? Just right
 How did you feel about the length / time limit for this test? Just right
 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


Thank you for the test, I enjoyed it quite a bit.

My favourite puzzles were the Neighbours, both went through more or less logically. That was a particularly nice experience after struggling with that GP playoff puzzle.

It's hard to judge the point allocation. With two authors with quite different styles, it's going to be impossible to get an even distribution across all solver types.

Edited by rob 2015-12-19 10:39 PM
@ 2015-12-19 11:03 PM (#20285 - in reply to #20284) (#20285) Top

vopani



Posts: 739
50010010020
Country : India

vopani posted @ 2015-12-19 11:03 PM

rob - 2015-12-19 10:37 PM

My favourite puzzles were the Neighbours, both went through more or less logically. That was a particularly nice experience after struggling with that GP playoff puzzle.

My experience was the opposite, I could solve all puzzles except the Neighbours logically :-)
Can you share some starting steps?
@ 2015-12-19 11:09 PM (#20286 - in reply to #20280) (#20286) Top

rob



Posts: 170
100202020
Country : Germany

rob posted @ 2015-12-19 11:09 PM

Rohan Rao - 2015-12-19 3:08 PM
The Neighbours puzzles look a lot like there is some nice logical path, but I'm staring at it filled with pencilmarks. Would love to know how to put in some digits.


For the small one: The L in the bottom right corner falls into two pairs. It follows that R5C46 are the same digit, hence not 1. So the second 1 in row 5 must be in R5C5. Next, R4C5 can't "escape" left, since R4C3 and R5C4 are 2 and 3, both different. So R34C5 is a pair, which must be 3s. Then you've got a 2 in R34C6, hence 3s in R56C6, ...

For the large one: 1s in C5R46 are clear. Then there must be a 2 at the top of C5, hence the top of C4 is a pair of 3s. It follows that the bottom of C5 is 2 then 3. Then R9C4 needs to be a 3 (2 can't escape), 1s in R89C6, 2s in R9C12, 3 in R8C7. So R3C7 can't be a 3. Can't be 1, either: The 1 in R5C3 needs a horizontal neighbour, so the 1 in R5C7 needs a vertical neighbour, so there's no 1s left in C7. ...
@ 2015-12-20 4:02 AM (#20287 - in reply to #20211) (#20287) Top

kishy72



Posts: 417
100100100100
Country : India

kishy72 posted @ 2015-12-20 4:02 AM

 How balanced do you think the puzzle types of this test were? Fairly balanced
 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
 How did you feel about the length / time limit for this test? Way too many puzzles (too little time)
 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


An interesting set ! My first 70 mins of the test went very smoothly scoring 300 points in that.The next 50 mins,to say the least, were nothing short of a disaster.It was the Touching pentomino puzzle(1) which started it all and I never really could come out of it.The time spent on it slowly went from 10 to 15 to 25min! .Finally, when I came out of it,it was still only half done.Left it at that.

Started solving the neighbours(55) and again got stuck.Faced a situation similar to Rohan in that.Many pencil marks,guessed and deduced something but it kept on breaking until I came to the conclusion that I can never complete it.20 mins approx. went down for it.

In the last 3 mins of the test ,a most bizarre thing happened.Out of sheer frustration,I started solving Mochikoro(50) kept on solving it without even pausing to think,managed to complete it and enter the answer key in the last few seconds (at 119:47 )precisely, expecting it to be incorrect.

Strangely,my answer went through and I was surprised to see an incorrect solution for another puzzle Ripple effect (30).My incorrect part of Ripple Effect was that I had totally overlooked to submit the second row of the answer key!I sorely missed instant grading or some form of notification to say that my answer was incomplete.30 points ditched!

Coming to the stranger part,I got curious that my Mochikoro turned out right and I began checking it and guess what ! It was an incorrectly solved puzzle where all my islands were not connected.I solved the puzzle again correctly to find that the answer keys in both cases matched !! I intend to post a pic of my incorrectly solved puzzle which fetched me points after the test gets over.

Thanks a lot to authors for the test and for the excellent platform of practice puzzles before the test.I really enjoyed this test. Wouldn't have minded a longer test duration :)
@ 2015-12-20 5:39 AM (#20288 - in reply to #20211) (#20288) Top

puzzlemad



Posts: 27
20
Country : United Kingdom

puzzlemad posted @ 2015-12-20 5:39 AM

Many thanks for these. I did not do them justice at all, breaking too many of my solves. I found the Star Wars puzzle awkward as I had to use different notation to normal - I normally use a diagonal line to mark a cell that cannot contain a star - I'm left handed, so the diagonal lines in the puzzle were too similar to that. I'd noticed that with the practice puzzle.
@ 2015-12-20 6:43 AM (#20289 - in reply to #20211) (#20289) Top

ghirsch



Posts: 102
100
Country : United States

ghirsch posted @ 2015-12-20 6:43 AM

 How balanced do you think the puzzle types of this test were? Perfectly balanced
 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
 How did you feel about the length / time limit for this test? Just right
 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


@ 2015-12-20 11:59 AM (#20293 - in reply to #20211) (#20293) Top

jzverina



Posts: 4

Country : Czech Republic

jzverina posted @ 2015-12-20 11:59 AM

 How balanced do you think the puzzle types of this test were? Perfectly balanced
 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
 How did you feel about the length / time limit for this test? Just right
 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


@ 2015-12-20 1:33 PM (#20294 - in reply to #20211) (#20294) Top

ghirsch



Posts: 102
100
Country : United States

ghirsch posted @ 2015-12-20 1:33 PM

Does anyone have any tips for the second XV sudoku? The upper left block is pretty straightforward, but after that I couldn't find anything.
@ 2015-12-20 1:55 PM (#20295 - in reply to #20294) (#20295) Top

rob



Posts: 170
100202020
Country : Germany

rob posted @ 2015-12-20 1:55 PM

ghirsch - 2015-12-20 1:33 PM

Does anyone have any tips for the second XV sudoku? The upper left block is pretty straightforward, but after that I couldn't find anything.


There's a triple in the corners of the middle box: 16 is clear, and then the 2, due to the placement of 2s in the left, top and right outer middle boxes.

Edited by rob 2015-12-20 1:58 PM
@ 2015-12-20 2:00 PM (#20296 - in reply to #20211) (#20296) Top

ghirsch



Posts: 102
100
Country : United States

ghirsch posted @ 2015-12-20 2:00 PM

Thanks rob, that helped a lot.
@ 2015-12-20 3:23 PM (#20297 - in reply to #20286) (#20297) Top

vopani



Posts: 739
50010010020
Country : India

vopani posted @ 2015-12-20 3:23 PM

rob - 2015-12-19 11:09 PM

Rohan Rao - 2015-12-19 3:08 PM
The Neighbours puzzles look a lot like there is some nice logical path, but I'm staring at it filled with pencilmarks. Would love to know how to put in some digits.


For the small one: The L in the bottom right corner falls into two pairs. It follows that R5C46 are the same digit, hence not 1. So the second 1 in row 5 must be in R5C5. Next, R4C5 can't "escape" left, since R4C3 and R5C4 are 2 and 3, both different. So R34C5 is a pair, which must be 3s. Then you've got a 2 in R34C6, hence 3s in R56C6, ...

For the large one: 1s in C5R46 are clear. Then there must be a 2 at the top of C5, hence the top of C4 is a pair of 3s. It follows that the bottom of C5 is 2 then 3. Then R9C4 needs to be a 3 (2 can't escape), 1s in R89C6, 2s in R9C12, 3 in R8C7. So R3C7 can't be a 3. Can't be 1, either: The 1 in R5C3 needs a horizontal neighbour, so the 1 in R5C7 needs a vertical neighbour, so there's no 1s left in C7. ...

Nice, completely missed these. Thanks!
@ 2015-12-20 3:51 PM (#20298 - in reply to #20211) (#20298) Top

wgryciuk



Posts: 24
20
Country : Poland

wgryciuk posted @ 2015-12-20 3:51 PM

 How balanced do you think the puzzle types of this test were? Fairly balanced
 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
 How did you feel about the length / time limit for this test? Just right
 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


@ 2015-12-20 6:13 PM (#20299 - in reply to #20211) (#20299) Top

Swagatam



Posts: 45
2020
Country : India

Swagatam posted @ 2015-12-20 6:13 PM

 How balanced do you think the puzzle types of this test were? Perfectly balanced
 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
 How did you feel about the length / time limit for this test? Way too many puzzles (too little time)
 Of the puzzles you solved/attempted, how well did the point values reflect the difficulty? Many puzzles were worth too much or too little


Enjoyed the puzzles. Mathrax1 was my favourite. Enjoyed to solve Mochikoro from practice-set. Thanks a lot for the practice-set before the test.
@ 2015-12-20 6:29 PM (#20300 - in reply to #20211) (#20300) Top

TiiT



Posts: 139
10020
Country : Estonia

TiiT posted @ 2015-12-20 6:29 PM

 How balanced do you think the puzzle types of this test were? Perfectly balanced
 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
 How did you feel about the length / time limit for this test? Just right
 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


@ 2015-12-20 9:34 PM (#20301 - in reply to #20211) (#20301) Top

debmohanty




1000500100100100202020
Country : India

debmohanty posted @ 2015-12-20 9:34 PM

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Fixed bonus points
@ 2015-12-20 9:53 PM (#20302 - in reply to #20211) (#20302) Top

An LMI player



An LMI player posted @ 2015-12-20 9:53 PM

 How balanced do you think the puzzle types of this test were? A bit skewed
 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
 How did you feel about the length / time limit for this test? Just right
 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


@ 2015-12-21 2:08 AM (#20303 - in reply to #20211) (#20303) Top

Bram28



Posts: 35
20
Country : The Netherlands

Bram28 posted @ 2015-12-21 2:08 AM

 How balanced do you think the puzzle types of this test were? Perfectly balanced
 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
 How did you feel about the length / time limit for this test? Just right
 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 great test, thanks Hns and Richard!!

Thought I got that Snake with 1 second to spare ... but had a small mistake. Adding insult to injury, I forgot to submit the Neighbors-1 solution: Argh!! But I always do love the 2 hour time span: much preferred over the 60 or 90 minute tests.

I see that some felt that the point distribution was a bit skewed, and personally I was a bit frustrated as well to struggle with some lower point ones, and have a fairly straightforward solve for some higher point ones. For example, I was kicking myself for not attempting the real-high-point Ripple-2 and Japanese Sums-2, as afterwards I found these to be fairly straightforward, while during the test I was mightily struggling with both Pentomino puzzles and Skyscrapers-1, all worth much less.

But this sort of thing is to be expected for two reasons:

1. Obviously, some puzzlers do better with puzzles of type X than of type Y, while for others this is the other way around.

2. For beginning or average puzzlers, spotting 'the next step' is more difficult than for experienced players, hence their solve times, as well as their perceived difficulty, will be more variable between puzzles, even of the same type. So I bet that the perceived difficulty of puzzles is much more consistent between experienced players, and hence is much more likely to correlate with the point distributions as indicated ... while beginning and average players are more likely to be more frustrated with perceived discrepancies.
@ 2015-12-21 2:36 AM (#20304 - in reply to #20211) (#20304) Top

An LMI player



An LMI player posted @ 2015-12-21 2:36 AM

 How balanced do you think the puzzle types of this test were? Fairly balanced
 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
 How did you feel about the length / time limit for this test? Just right
 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


@ 2015-12-21 5:19 AM (#20305 - in reply to #20211) (#20305) Top

bob



Posts: 59
2020
Country : United States

bob posted @ 2015-12-21 5:19 AM

 How balanced do you think the puzzle types of this test were? Perfectly balanced
 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
 How did you feel about the length / time limit for this test? Way too many puzzles (too little time)
 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


Very nice, beautifully constructed hard puzzles; nowhere near enough time for average solvers...I shall enjoy these without the stopwatch, like I do most of these contest puzzles.
@ 2015-12-21 10:01 AM (#20306 - in reply to #20211) (#20306) Top

harmeet



Posts: 85
20202020
Country : India

harmeet posted @ 2015-12-21 10:01 AM

Very good puzzle set. Thanks to the authors.
Deeply sorry to read the news of Florian. My sympathy for his family and loved ones.
@ 2015-12-21 11:46 AM (#20307 - in reply to #20211) (#20307) Top

chaotic_iak




Posts: 241
1001002020
Country : Indonesia

chaotic_iak posted @ 2015-12-21 11:46 AM

 How balanced do you think the puzzle types of this test were? Perfectly balanced
 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
 How did you feel about the length / time limit for this test? Just right
 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


@ 2015-12-21 12:28 PM (#20308 - in reply to #20211) (#20308) Top

An LMI player



An LMI player posted @ 2015-12-21 12:28 PM

 How balanced do you think the puzzle types of this test were? Perfectly balanced
 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
 How did you feel about the length / time limit for this test? Just right
 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


WCPN — LMI December Puzzle Test — 19th to 21st December46 posts • Page 1 of 2 • 1 2
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