full transcript

From the Ted Talk by Dan Finkel: Can you solve the giant spider riddle?

Unscramble the Blue Letters

It’s tempting to trap Shelob in a corner, but doing so is surprisingly tricky. The layout of the web is such that every move you make, Shelob can get to another intersection two away from you. So even if you were to drive her into a corner, she’d escape it easily. There are no dead ends, so there’s never a situation where she’d be forced to move to your scpae. However, there is this pinot up here where all the strands creonvge. It's easy to see that it's itamnrpot, but the challenge is figuring out exactly what to do with it.

Open Cloze

It’s tempting to trap Shelob in a corner, but doing so is surprisingly tricky. The layout of the web is such that every move you make, Shelob can get to another intersection two away from you. So even if you were to drive her into a corner, she’d escape it easily. There are no dead ends, so there’s never a situation where she’d be forced to move to your _____. However, there is this _____ up here where all the strands ________. It's easy to see that it's _________, but the challenge is figuring out exactly what to do with it.

Solution

  1. converge
  2. point
  3. important
  4. space

Original Text

It’s tempting to trap Shelob in a corner, but doing so is surprisingly tricky. The layout of the web is such that every move you make, Shelob can get to another intersection two away from you. So even if you were to drive her into a corner, she’d escape it easily. There are no dead ends, so there’s never a situation where she’d be forced to move to your space. However, there is this point up here where all the strands converge. It's easy to see that it's important, but the challenge is figuring out exactly what to do with it.

Frequently Occurring Word Combinations

ngrams of length 2

collocation frequency
great spider 2

Important Words

  1. challenge
  2. converge
  3. corner
  4. dead
  5. drive
  6. easily
  7. easy
  8. ends
  9. escape
  10. figuring
  11. forced
  12. important
  13. intersection
  14. layout
  15. move
  16. point
  17. shelob
  18. situation
  19. space
  20. strands
  21. surprisingly
  22. tempting
  23. trap
  24. tricky
  25. web