Re: "AP Chemistry" - July 12, 2019
Posted: Mon Jul 15, 2019 3:51 am
I got the right answer through unscrambling the letters, not by the shaded letters in the answer key on Monday 's puzzle.
A place to discuss the WSJ Weekly Crossword Contest and other "meta"-style crosswords
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I think you were in some of the same yawner classes I wasAl Sisti wrote: ↑Mon Jul 15, 2019 12:24 am I always had a weird affinity for the Periodic Table. One thing I noticed early in my science classes was that I could spell out my name in monotonically non-decreasing atomic numbers -- 13, 14, 16, 22 (Aluminum, Silicon, Sulfur, Titanium, or Al Si-s-ti). I spent most of every class after that trying to make up nonsense sentences using just the symbols of elements, while everyone else was...um...stud-y-ing? Did I pronounce that correctly?
I also have a periodic table placemat. And placemats with maps of the US and the world. And the presidents. I refer to them surprisingly often. (And my kids are in their 20s haha)Diana wrote: ↑Mon Jul 15, 2019 12:09 am I only got N, Sn, Cl, P, S, and Cr and came up with UNSUOL. So I figured it was "Solution" and didn't suss out the others because I was had to leave the house, but I was confident.
And I can honestly state I needed no Google for this. (Because one of my table placemats is of the Periodic Table.)
The only "school" placemat I have kept is the one my daughter made when she learned cursive writing (do they still teach that in school?). One side has the upper and lower case alphabet in cursive and the other side has the multiplication tables written out and of course it was laminated. I don't really refer to it, or even really use it...but it gives me pleasure and reminds me of the good times.FrankieHeck wrote: ↑Mon Jul 15, 2019 7:07 amI also have a periodic table placemat. And placemats with maps of the US and the world. And the presidents. I refer to them surprisingly often. (And my kids are in their 20s haha)Diana wrote: ↑Mon Jul 15, 2019 12:09 am I only got N, Sn, Cl, P, S, and Cr and came up with UNSUOL. So I figured it was "Solution" and didn't suss out the others because I was had to leave the house, but I was confident.
And I can honestly state I needed no Google for this. (Because one of my table placemats is of the Periodic Table.)
Ah, the good old days! Way back when I was young enough to actually be awake at midnight ES/DT. So so long ago. Oh, wait - these contests have only been around for four years. Hm.Diana wrote: ↑Sun Jul 14, 2019 11:40 pm
And I typed something else about how when I was a noob and tried to beat Barb K to the answer at 9:00 PDT or PST, to exclaim the answer, she'd always beat me. Anyway, it was some big long drawn out thing. Let's post our answer together in 10 minutes sharp, Laura. Okay?
Inca wrote: ↑Mon Jul 15, 2019 12:06 am OOOH, I was supposed to look at it column-wise. Well no wonder I didn't see that. I never highlight anything so that didn't pop for me. Maybe it's time to get a highlighter. But since I do the puzzle online, I won't use it anyway. Don't want to mess up my monitor.
Having the theme answers symmetrical helped me find them and gave me confidence that I had all of them.Eric Porter wrote: ↑Mon Jul 15, 2019 12:51 am I see I'm not the only one who didn't find all of the elements. I really think this puzzle needed to have starred answers or tell us the number of letters in the answer.
On my first pass I only had 6 of the 8 because they were obviously missing a word.
On my next pass I realized that it was "trash heap". The word trash can refer by itself to a pile of garbage, so I'm a little unhappy about that one.
I tried unscrambling, etc, but didn't see anything. I looked at all of the red herrings. Recipe, pasta sauce, & Simpsons are all in an A & D. Tonka is a toy company and intersects that clue.
There are 7 three letter grid entries with duplicate letters.
After going to the MMMM puzzle site, I realized that it must be simply going from element -> atomic number -> grid. I looked again and saw that it looked like solution. I needed an 'S' and saw that 17 had an 'S' and would make 'clap'.
I then realized that it must be "thunder clap" and submitted 'solution'.
I've lived in the US my whole life and I've never heard of "thunder clap" as a metaphor for a shocking surprise. I thought it was simply 'thunder' because "stealing someone's thunder" can mean to spoil a big surprise. Did anyone else miss thunder clap?
Yeah, I've actually created a very nice excel version of the grid and I can copy even the clues from the PDF into the excel template (in case MG gets evil) but honestly I do try to avoid going to the excel file because it does take a few minutes to set up the grid (highlight the black squares and enter the numbers). This week, though, I did have to use the excel file (too many steps to keep track of in my head), but I still was too lazy to highlight the squares. I still count the solve as 100% because I got the answer without having to "see" them in order.BarbaraK wrote: ↑Mon Jul 15, 2019 7:26 amInca wrote: ↑Mon Jul 15, 2019 12:06 am OOOH, I was supposed to look at it column-wise. Well no wonder I didn't see that. I never highlight anything so that didn't pop for me. Maybe it's time to get a highlighter. But since I do the puzzle online, I won't use it anyway. Don't want to mess up my monitor.
Sometimes when I’m working online, I’ll make a pdf of the grid and annotate that. Highlighting that way is easier to undo when I realize I’m in a totally wrong rabbit hole.
Final exam for inorganic chemistry included (50% of grade) producing the periodic table by building the orbitals. Freehand, they didn't even give you graph paper. You had to name and produce atomic wt. for each. Fortunately, it did not include the rare earth elements, but you did have to show where they would fit in in the sequence. I hated that class. It was a big factor in switching to Engineering.Bob cruise director wrote: ↑Mon Jul 15, 2019 6:53 amI think you were in some of the same yawner classes I wasAl Sisti wrote: ↑Mon Jul 15, 2019 12:24 am I always had a weird affinity for the Periodic Table. One thing I noticed early in my science classes was that I could spell out my name in monotonically non-decreasing atomic numbers -- 13, 14, 16, 22 (Aluminum, Silicon, Sulfur, Titanium, or Al Si-s-ti). I spent most of every class after that trying to make up nonsense sentences using just the symbols of elements, while everyone else was...um...stud-y-ing? Did I pronounce that correctly?
I missed TRASH at first too, but looked for symmetry in the AP-themed clues to confirm THUNDER CLAP, SNAP BACK, and found TRASH HEAP.Eric Porter wrote: ↑Mon Jul 15, 2019 12:51 am I see I'm not the only one who didn't find all of the elements. I really think this puzzle needed to have starred answers or tell us the number of letters in the answer.
On my first pass I only had 6 of the 8 because they were obviously missing a word.
On my next pass I realized that it was "trash heap". The word trash can refer by itself to a pile of garbage, so I'm a little unhappy about that one.
I tried unscrambling, etc, but didn't see anything. I looked at all of the red herrings. Recipe, pasta sauce, & Simpsons are all in an A & D. Tonka is a toy company and intersects that clue.
There are 7 three letter grid entries with duplicate letters.
After going to the MMMM puzzle site, I realized that it must be simply going from element -> atomic number -> grid. I looked again and saw that it looked like solution. I needed an 'S' and saw that 17 had an 'S' and would make 'clap'.
I then realized that it must be "thunder clap" and submitted 'solution'.
I've lived in the US my whole life and I've never heard of "thunder clap" as a metaphor for a shocking surprise. I thought it was simply 'thunder' because "stealing someone's thunder" can mean to spoil a big surprise. Did anyone else miss thunder clap?
I figured out how to adjust the settings so it will no longer show this alert. This should fix the problem of "disappearing" posts.Bob cruise director wrote: ↑Mon Jul 15, 2019 7:26 amAs a note - I have found that sometimes comments don't post (like the one I just did) so it may not be an ID10T error but a glitch in the system somewhere. If someone has posted while you are posting, you get an alert and have to hit submit again but I usually miss that.