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

  1. slate
  2. notorious
  3. responsible
  4. system
  5. chain
  6. oxygen
  7. caused
  8. 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

  1. career
  2. caused
  3. chain
  4. coil
  5. conjunction
  6. critical
  7. determined
  8. effect
  9. effects
  10. emergency
  11. equipped
  12. error
  13. exploding
  14. factor
  15. factors
  16. failures
  17. fortunately
  18. ignition
  19. immediately
  20. independently
  21. kidnapping
  22. kinks
  23. lead
  24. leaking
  25. levels
  26. minor
  27. notes
  28. notorious
  29. originating
  30. oxygen
  31. pinpointing
  32. racing
  33. reaction
  34. reactor
  35. responsible
  36. result
  37. runner
  38. slate
  39. system
  40. test
  41. thruster
  42. thrusters
  43. tinkerer
  44. trigger
  45. turbo
  46. ultimate
  47. uncle
  48. work