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. ...

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 :)

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.

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

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

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

Thanks rob, that helped a lot.

Nice, completely missed these. Thanks!

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

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.

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

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Fixed bonus points

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

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.

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

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.

Very good puzzle set. Thanks to the authors.
Deeply sorry to read the news of Florian. My sympathy for his family and loved ones.

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

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

Thanks, that was fun. I just can't solve Mathrax puzzles in competition. I seem to always mess them up repeatedly. I don't know what is up with that. Surely it will go the same as always, where I will sit down later and solve them in one go without problems.

Excellent Test. Beautiful set of puzzles. Really enjoyed the set.
Nothing much to regret except that 1 puzzle went wrong. But didn't waste much time except 10 minutes on Neighbors 2nd and Ripple Effect 2nd one.
Even I missed those steps of Neighbors which rob explained. Haven't solved yet Japanese Sums 2, Snake 2 and Mathrax 2.

It would be helpful if anyone can tell the steps/start for Ripple Effect 2nd, really, just all pencil marks is what I can put (Except few 1s and 2s in bottom left).

Rest all experience was good, down until last second. I submited 2nd Pentominoes at 1:59:59 (hand shivering while moving mouse pointer to submit button :p , because just had 2 seconds, but fortunately could submit it) :)

Thanks again for wonderful test.

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?	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

Start with the 2's in the right top.

Thank you.
Actually did that, but missed 1 step , after which the solve was smooth.
I focused only at that area after you mentioned, and found the step I was missing.

i.e. I got 2 pair in R2R3-C7C8. And eliminated 2 from R2R3C9, but somehow failed to use same logic to eliminate it from R4C7C8.