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

I found the Curve Data answer key a bit difficult to understand without the Instruction Booklet.

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?	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

somehow I found the triangles the hardest XD nice puzzles overall!

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?	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

Okay, now I know counting puzzles will forever be my bane.

Even though the puzzles are "casual" (and in fact that makes them unusual for most competitive puzzlers), they are still of a very good quality.

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.)

The twist in Arithmetic Square is very interesting, although I question whether it's a good idea to connect different puzzles; different puzzles are meant to be solved independently (otherwise they count as a single puzzle), and I certainly had to work back and forth there.

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.

What was your opinion of the distribution of easy/hard puzzles?	Too many easy 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?	Many puzzles were worth too much or too little
What was your opinion of the booklet formatting and printing?	Just right

I found the 1/2/3 point puzzles to be much slower than the points suggested. Did the average test solvers really solve the final Word Search in less than 2 minutes? Or #11, or #12? I am worried that the points are based on the fastest correct guesser, and ignore the wrong guesses...
I did enjoy the medium and large puzzles though, and I'm glad I did them first.

The first one was straightforward. The only thing you could possibly miss was the 4 triangles without any horizontal lines. The second one was a a little tricky, because of the gaps in the centre. Many participants got a count of 32 on this first.

Valid point. Agree with this. In this case, you either get zero or ten. (Although if someone attempts this in the end he/she may still get 5 points).

Actually these were supposed to be independent initially. And even without the given letters in squares. But it was turning out to be much tougher then. So I decided to link and also give the letters inside the squares later.

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"

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

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.

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?	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

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?	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

Never give a test in hurry. But not an option for me this time, since I am traveling. Messed up lots of puzzles. And should have attempted all word puzzles first, as they were high points and much easy to solve than casual stuff.
This might be my discard mostly. Let's see.
But very hard test in my opinion. Hardest of all so far.
I enjoyed solving, whichiver i solved.
Answer keys. I got confused, as some letters were combined and i was not sure how to enter it. May be i missed instructions somewhere, but eventually i figured it out.
Thanks Rakesh and LMI.

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

Can you elaborate which answer keys were horrible, so that we can work on improving on it in future.

What was your opinion about the answer key extraction?

Answer keys could have been better

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

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

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.

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).

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.

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

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

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

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.

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

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