full transcript

From the Ted Talk by Alex Rosenthal: Can you solve the magical maze riddle?

Unscramble the Blue Letters


Today is the annual Sly Wizard Tournament featuring competitors from the wizarding world’s three greatest shoolcs, and you’ve been entrusted with an enormous responsibility. You are to administer the taomnenrut. First, you and you alone will determine how many events there will be and their scoring system. Then the three wizards will enter your maze and compete in your chosen events in uostmt secrecy; only you and they will see what happens. The cteimtpoion begins and...

Wow, that was one for the record bkoos. The winner was... wait, you have no idea. The last thing you remember was a dark wziard showing up and casting a forgetting curse. The competitors seem even more confused— each is convinced they won. This is bad. There can be no do-overs, and the last friaule to declare a winner set off the first Great Wizarding War. You’ve got to figure this out— and fast.

Open Cloze


Today is the annual Sly Wizard Tournament featuring competitors from the wizarding world’s three greatest _______, and you’ve been entrusted with an enormous responsibility. You are to administer the __________. First, you and you alone will determine how many events there will be and their scoring system. Then the three wizards will enter your maze and compete in your chosen events in ______ secrecy; only you and they will see what happens. The ___________ begins and...

Wow, that was one for the record _____. The winner was... wait, you have no idea. The last thing you remember was a dark ______ showing up and casting a forgetting curse. The competitors seem even more confused— each is convinced they won. This is bad. There can be no do-overs, and the last _______ to declare a winner set off the first Great Wizarding War. You’ve got to figure this out— and fast.

Solution


  1. utmost
  2. books
  3. schools
  4. competition
  5. tournament
  6. wizard
  7. failure

Original Text


Today is the annual Sly Wizard Tournament featuring competitors from the wizarding world’s three greatest schools, and you’ve been entrusted with an enormous responsibility. You are to administer the tournament. First, you and you alone will determine how many events there will be and their scoring system. Then the three wizards will enter your maze and compete in your chosen events in utmost secrecy; only you and they will see what happens. The competition begins and...

Wow, that was one for the record books. The winner was... wait, you have no idea. The last thing you remember was a dark wizard showing up and casting a forgetting curse. The competitors seem even more confused— each is convinced they won. This is bad. There can be no do-overs, and the last failure to declare a winner set off the first Great Wizarding War. You’ve got to figure this out— and fast.

Frequently Occurring Word Combinations


ngrams of length 2

collocation frequency
sly wizard 2
wizard tournament 2
place received 2
place finish 2

ngrams of length 3

collocation frequency
sly wizard tournament 2

Important Words


  1. administer
  2. annual
  3. bad
  4. begins
  5. books
  6. casting
  7. chosen
  8. compete
  9. competition
  10. competitors
  11. convinced
  12. curse
  13. dark
  14. declare
  15. determine
  16. enormous
  17. enter
  18. entrusted
  19. events
  20. failure
  21. fast
  22. featuring
  23. figure
  24. forgetting
  25. great
  26. greatest
  27. idea
  28. maze
  29. record
  30. remember
  31. responsibility
  32. schools
  33. scoring
  34. set
  35. showing
  36. sly
  37. system
  38. today
  39. tournament
  40. utmost
  41. wait
  42. war
  43. winner
  44. wizard
  45. wizarding
  46. wizards
  47. won
  48. wow