full transcript

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

Unscramble the Blue Letters


The web stretches over a large chasm, with intersecting strands cnimog to a single pnoit on the other side. Moving across each strand requires a careful dash, and you must keep going until you stop at the next hub where two strands cross. By ancient siepdr code, only one competitor may traverse the web at a time. You must take turns, moving from one intersection to an adjacent one. No one may spin new paths into existence or skip turns. You begin two spaces from Shelob, and to win, you must ctach her by your tenth move. Can you attain the mtlane of spider supremacy?

pusae here to figure it out for yourself. aenwsr in 3

Open Cloze


The web stretches over a large chasm, with intersecting strands ______ to a single _____ on the other side. Moving across each strand requires a careful dash, and you must keep going until you stop at the next hub where two strands cross. By ancient ______ code, only one competitor may traverse the web at a time. You must take turns, moving from one intersection to an adjacent one. No one may spin new paths into existence or skip turns. You begin two spaces from Shelob, and to win, you must _____ her by your tenth move. Can you attain the ______ of spider supremacy?

_____ here to figure it out for yourself. ______ in 3

Solution


  1. catch
  2. spider
  3. pause
  4. coming
  5. point
  6. mantle
  7. answer

Original Text


The web stretches over a large chasm, with intersecting strands coming to a single point on the other side. Moving across each strand requires a careful dash, and you must keep going until you stop at the next hub where two strands cross. By ancient spider code, only one competitor may traverse the web at a time. You must take turns, moving from one intersection to an adjacent one. No one may spin new paths into existence or skip turns. You begin two spaces from Shelob, and to win, you must catch her by your tenth move. Can you attain the mantle of spider supremacy?

Pause here to figure it out for yourself. Answer in 3

Frequently Occurring Word Combinations


ngrams of length 2

collocation frequency
great spider 2


Important Words


  1. adjacent
  2. ancient
  3. answer
  4. attain
  5. careful
  6. catch
  7. chasm
  8. code
  9. coming
  10. competitor
  11. cross
  12. dash
  13. existence
  14. figure
  15. hub
  16. intersecting
  17. intersection
  18. large
  19. mantle
  20. move
  21. moving
  22. paths
  23. pause
  24. point
  25. requires
  26. shelob
  27. side
  28. single
  29. skip
  30. spaces
  31. spider
  32. spin
  33. stop
  34. strand
  35. strands
  36. stretches
  37. supremacy
  38. tenth
  39. time
  40. traverse
  41. turns
  42. web
  43. win