full transcript
From the Ted Talk by Alex Gendler: Can you solve the death race riddle?
Unscramble the Blue Letters
fulotarteny, the Coil Runner comes equipped with emergency turbo thrusters. Unfortunately, your uncle was a notoruios tinkerer, and the ssytem still had some kinks to work out. Just minor things like the ignition exploding, the reactor leaking, or the oyxgen levels depleting— any of which would end your racing career immediately. Before his kidnapping, Uncle salte determined that each of these critical failures was the ultimate result of a ciahn reaction originating in the thrusters. He was also certain that while one factor could trigger two different effects, and two factors could each independently lead to the same effect, no effect is cseuad by two factors in conjunction. However, Uncle Slate never got around to pinpointing which thruster was reisnsplobe for which error. All you have are the notes from his test runs:
Open Cloze
___________, the Coil Runner comes equipped with emergency turbo thrusters. Unfortunately, your uncle was a _________ tinkerer, and the ______ still had some kinks to work out. Just minor things like the ignition exploding, the reactor leaking, or the ______ levels depleting— any of which would end your racing career immediately. Before his kidnapping, Uncle _____ determined that each of these critical failures was the ultimate result of a _____ reaction originating in the thrusters. He was also certain that while one factor could trigger two different effects, and two factors could each independently lead to the same effect, no effect is ______ by two factors in conjunction. However, Uncle Slate never got around to pinpointing which thruster was ___________ for which error. All you have are the notes from his test runs:
Solution
- slate
- notorious
- responsible
- system
- chain
- oxygen
- caused
- fortunately
Original Text
Fortunately, the Coil Runner comes equipped with emergency turbo thrusters. Unfortunately, your uncle was a notorious tinkerer, and the system still had some kinks to work out. Just minor things like the ignition exploding, the reactor leaking, or the oxygen levels depleting— any of which would end your racing career immediately. Before his kidnapping, Uncle Slate determined that each of these critical failures was the ultimate result of a chain reaction originating in the thrusters. He was also certain that while one factor could trigger two different effects, and two factors could each independently lead to the same effect, no effect is caused by two factors in conjunction. However, Uncle Slate never got around to pinpointing which thruster was responsible for which error. All you have are the notes from his test runs:
Frequently Occurring Word Combinations
ngrams of length 2
collocation |
frequency |
helium tank |
6 |
fuel gauge |
5 |
coil runner |
4 |
gauge glows |
4 |
oxygen levels |
3 |
tank rattles |
3 |
gravitometer spins |
3 |
panic switch |
3 |
uncle slate |
2 |
glowing fuel |
2 |
test run |
2 |
fourth test |
2 |
fuel tank |
2 |
ngrams of length 3
collocation |
frequency |
fuel gauge glows |
4 |
helium tank rattles |
3 |
Important Words
- career
- caused
- chain
- coil
- conjunction
- critical
- determined
- effect
- effects
- emergency
- equipped
- error
- exploding
- factor
- factors
- failures
- fortunately
- ignition
- immediately
- independently
- kidnapping
- kinks
- lead
- leaking
- levels
- minor
- notes
- notorious
- originating
- oxygen
- pinpointing
- racing
- reaction
- reactor
- responsible
- result
- runner
- slate
- system
- test
- thruster
- thrusters
- tinkerer
- trigger
- turbo
- ultimate
- uncle
- work