full transcript
From the Ted Talk by Dennis E. Shasha: Can you solve Dongle's Difficult Dilemma?
Unscramble the Blue Letters
Whoever first collects a trio of either gdloen or silver hexagons can use their power to raterece the wrold. You’ve already bid 24 gems on the first, when you realize that your rival has a daslratdy advantage: a mirror that lets him see what you’re bidding. He bids zero, and you win the first hoaxegn oihrtugt.
What’s your strategy to win a matching trio of hexagons before your rival?
Pause here to figure it out for yourself.
Answer in 3
Answer in 2
Answer in 1
Dongle’s dangled a difficult dilemma. Do you spend big to try to win the golden hexagons outright? Save as much as possible for silver? Or something in-between?
Open Cloze
Whoever first collects a trio of either ______ or silver hexagons can use their power to ________ the _____. You’ve already bid 24 gems on the first, when you realize that your rival has a _________ advantage: a mirror that lets him see what you’re bidding. He bids zero, and you win the first _______ ________.
What’s your strategy to win a matching trio of hexagons before your rival?
Pause here to figure it out for yourself.
Answer in 3
Answer in 2
Answer in 1
Dongle’s dangled a difficult dilemma. Do you spend big to try to win the golden hexagons outright? Save as much as possible for silver? Or something in-between?
Solution
- golden
- world
- recreate
- hexagon
- dastardly
- outright
Original Text
Whoever first collects a trio of either golden or silver hexagons can use their power to recreate the world. You’ve already bid 24 gems on the first, when you realize that your rival has a dastardly advantage: a mirror that lets him see what you’re bidding. He bids zero, and you win the first hexagon outright.
What’s your strategy to win a matching trio of hexagons before your rival?
Pause here to figure it out for yourself.
Answer in 3
Answer in 2
Answer in 1
Dongle’s dangled a difficult dilemma. Do you spend big to try to win the golden hexagons outright? Save as much as possible for silver? Or something in-between?
Frequently Occurring Word Combinations
ngrams of length 2
| collocation |
frequency |
| evil wizard |
2 |
| gordon wins |
2 |
Important Words
- answer
- bid
- bidding
- bids
- big
- collects
- dangled
- dastardly
- difficult
- dilemma
- figure
- gems
- golden
- hexagon
- hexagons
- lets
- matching
- mirror
- outright
- pause
- power
- realize
- recreate
- rival
- save
- silver
- spend
- strategy
- trio
- win
- world