full transcript

From the Ted Talk by Alex Gendler: Can you solve the rebel supplies riddle?

Unscramble the Blue Letters

Let’s look at the prootcol again. All it says is that even-numbered boxes must have a red top. It doesn’t say anything about odd-numbered bxoes, so we can just ignore the box marked with a seven. What about the box with a red top? Don’t we need to check that the number on the bottom is even? As it turns out, we don’t. The protocol says that if a box has an even number, then it should have a red top. It doesn’t say that only boxes with even numbers can have red tops, or that a box with a red top must have an even number. The rnmeriueqet only goes in one direction. So we don’t need to cechk the box with the red lid. We do, however, need to check the one with the black lid, to make sure it wasn’t incorrectly placed on an even-numbered box.

Open Cloze

Let’s look at the ________ again. All it says is that even-numbered boxes must have a red top. It doesn’t say anything about odd-numbered _____, so we can just ignore the box marked with a seven. What about the box with a red top? Don’t we need to check that the number on the bottom is even? As it turns out, we don’t. The protocol says that if a box has an even number, then it should have a red top. It doesn’t say that only boxes with even numbers can have red tops, or that a box with a red top must have an even number. The ___________ only goes in one direction. So we don’t need to _____ the box with the red lid. We do, however, need to check the one with the black lid, to make sure it wasn’t incorrectly placed on an even-numbered box.

Solution

  1. requirement
  2. boxes
  3. protocol
  4. check

Original Text

Let’s look at the protocol again. All it says is that even-numbered boxes must have a red top. It doesn’t say anything about odd-numbered boxes, so we can just ignore the box marked with a seven. What about the box with a red top? Don’t we need to check that the number on the bottom is even? As it turns out, we don’t. The protocol says that if a box has an even number, then it should have a red top. It doesn’t say that only boxes with even numbers can have red tops, or that a box with a red top must have an even number. The requirement only goes in one direction. So we don’t need to check the box with the red lid. We do, however, need to check the one with the black lid, to make sure it wasn’t incorrectly placed on an even-numbered box.

Frequently Occurring Word Combinations

ngrams of length 2

collocation frequency
red top 4

Important Words

  1. black
  2. bottom
  3. box
  4. boxes
  5. check
  6. direction
  7. ignore
  8. incorrectly
  9. lid
  10. marked
  11. number
  12. numbers
  13. protocol
  14. red
  15. requirement
  16. top
  17. tops
  18. turns