"Seeking Answers" - October 8, 2021

A place to discuss the weekly Wall Street Journal Crossword Puzzle Contest, starting every Thursday around 4:00 p.m. Eastern time. Please do not post any answers or hints before the contest deadline which is midnight Sunday Eastern time.
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rosiegirl
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Joined: Sun Nov 22, 2020 4:26 pm

#321

Post by rosiegirl »

I was ready to submit Essay Questions on Saturday night, but waited until morning and was happy I did. I re-read the hint and read that the answer was two grid entries, and Question was not in the grid. Quickly found "test" in the grid and submitted that instead.
JeanneC
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#322

Post by JeanneC »

Put me in at 211 as a solver (did solve earlier, though). Definitely not an “aha” this week. But boy, after 2 bad weeks on the weekly meta, am I ever relieved I got this one.🤗
“I cannot and will not cut my conscience to fit this year’s fashions”. Lillian Hellman
burak
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#323

Post by burak »

This is not the type of meta that I'd ever be enamored with.

I also submitted ESSAY SET. In retrospect, ESSAY TEST definitely makes more sense but without a definite click I settled on the first thing that made sense to me. Eh, c'est la vie.
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EdStrong
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#324

Post by EdStrong »

Submitted essay redos. Oh well…
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Scott M
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#325

Post by Scott M »

woozy wrote: Mon Oct 11, 2021 12:21 am
Franklin.Bluth wrote: Mon Oct 11, 2021 12:07 am I don't know how anyone could feel 100% confident, unless maybe you put all 100 or so grid answers into pairs and got only nonsense.
Um... that's surely conceivable, isn't it?

Obviously ESSAY is the first grid entry so only 50 or so others, so *do* try them all and ... presto .... 100% confidence!

Until someone points out that SET and ESSAY SET might make for a conceivable answer... after all... the theme *is* a set of SAs.... until you realize you have never in your life ever heard anyone use the phrase "ESSAY SET" and .... the seeking *answers* is bet serve with TEST than with sets.

Anyway.... 100% confidence is a relative thing.... It's not like 100% means something is absolute, does it?

=====
Sara Dacus wrote: Mon Oct 11, 2021 12:09 am I submitted ESSAY SET. Anyone else do this? I didn't look far enough to consider TEST. Should have spent more time on it.
I didn't get far enough to consider SET... but when someone suggested it to me it actually gave me pause.
Given that the clues were all in the form of a possible test question, Essay Test is the obvious answer. I don't see Essay Set as a viable solution.
Last edited by Scott M on Mon Oct 11, 2021 12:48 am, edited 1 time in total.
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DrTom
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#326

Post by DrTom »

Sara Dacus wrote: Mon Oct 11, 2021 12:09 am I submitted ESSAY SET. Anyone else do this? I didn't look far enough to consider TEST. Should have spent more time on it.
Oh yes, I submitted ESSAY SET based on (1) a "set" of SAs and (2) the SET Question was "In need of nothing further", obviously a refence to the last part of the two word phrase I needed. Perfect, made sense, and the clue confirmed it....

THAT my friends is how you rush to an answer and then simultaneously use you addled mind to confirm your mistake.

I predict there will be quite a bit of ESSAY SETS, but as someone else pointed out, have you ever heard someone say "lets look at the ESSAY SET (well other than me of course). I can blame nobody but myself.

AH, but wait, the all powerful Internet can justify ANYTHING:

WIKI NOOKIEPEDIA (which just sounds wrong!)
The Essay Set is a miscellaneous furniture item in Animal Crossing: New Horizons. As a miscellaneous item, it can be placed on either the ground or on top of a tabletop. The Essay Set can be obtained from Nook's Cranny for 650 Bells.

Well, then if it is worth 650 bells, it MUST be a legitimate answer. :lol:
NUDGES!I am always willing to give nudges where needed; metas should be about fun, not frustration. Send me what you have done so far because often you are closer than you think!
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GTIJohnny
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#327

Post by GTIJohnny »

ESSAY SEER here. I "really saw" many SA's throughout.
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woozy
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#328

Post by woozy »

Scott M wrote: Mon Oct 11, 2021 12:47 am

Given that the clues were all in the form of a possible test question, Essay Test is the obvious answer. I don't see Essay Set as a viable solution.
I didn't even notice that! (Note to self: Start noticing weird things like that.)

So indeed, that was an S.A. Test.
Latest meta: Never forget... and never mind (A WSJ retaliation)
jh773
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Joined: Sun May 23, 2021 2:52 pm

#329

Post by jh773 »

I submitted ESSAY TEST earlier today without being totally confident, and after the reveal I still don’t like the meta. It would have been better if the clue for “test” had used S-A.

My reasoning for choosing “test” rather than “set” was because test is a synonym for “assay” which sounds like “s-a”… Funny that there was really no explicit reason for “test” to be the correct second part.
Barney
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#330

Post by Barney »

SAT (Scholastic Aptitude Test) is the 100% “aha” for Essay Test.
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mntlblok
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#331

Post by mntlblok »

Scott M wrote: Mon Oct 11, 2021 12:47 am
woozy wrote: Mon Oct 11, 2021 12:21 am
Franklin.Bluth wrote: Mon Oct 11, 2021 12:07 am
Given that the clues were all in the form of a possible test question, Essay Test is the obvious answer. I don't see Essay Set as a viable solution.
Ahhh. Hadn't picked up on that. Excellent. Not the typical use for the question mark in xword clues, eh?

The wifey couldn't get a click, I think, because we grew up with essay "questions" - always dreaded - but not so much with "essay test". Still, as soon I saw "test", I felt plenty clickish. :-)

Oh, and we're gonna fly up to Charlottesville next weekend, rent a car, and peep some leaves. Never been there. Hoping to learn the proper pronunciation of Monticello, too.
flyingMoose
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#332

Post by flyingMoose »

Once I found TEST and noted its quasi-symmetry with ESSAY, I quit looking for other options.
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DianeA
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#333

Post by DianeA »

Happy to say i got it! It was not a "click" for me, since i first came up with ESSAY PLUS (the S and A starts of the long answers, PLUS more). That was after I tried to make something out of all the other words that began with S and A. SEER ALESON, anyone? That went absolutely nowhere.
I did note the phrasing of the clues as questions, but that's not unusual. I just figured ESSAY TEST is more common than Plus.
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RussHiggins
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#334

Post by RussHiggins »

My logic was: Seeking Answers as the title, a number of two-word theme answers with S.... A...., and ESSAY at1D, so the theme has to be ESSAY. Two other grid entries that describe the theme could be NYU TEST (in hindsight, maybe more of an example of the theme, rather than describing). Oh well, there's always next week.
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RussHiggins
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#335

Post by RussHiggins »

DianeA wrote: Mon Oct 11, 2021 6:57 am Happy to say i got it! It was not a "click" for me, since i first came up with ESSAY PLUS (the S and A starts of the long answers, PLUS more). That was after I tried to make something out of all the other words that began with S and A. SEER ALESON, anyone? That went absolutely nowhere.
I did note the phrasing of the clues as questions, but that's not unusual. I just figured ESSAY TEST is more common than Plus.
I got sooooo stuck assuming the answer had to begin with S and A. At least I had some company.
Sara Dacus
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#336

Post by Sara Dacus »

DrTom wrote: Mon Oct 11, 2021 12:47 am
Sara Dacus wrote: Mon Oct 11, 2021 12:09 am I submitted ESSAY SET. Anyone else do this? I didn't look far enough to consider TEST. Should have spent more time on it.
Oh yes, I submitted ESSAY SET based on (1) a "set" of SAs and (2) the SET Question was "In need of nothing further", obviously a refence to the last part of the two word phrase I needed. Perfect, made sense, and the clue confirmed it....

THAT my friends is how you rush to an answer and then simultaneously use you addled mind to confirm your mistake.

I predict there will be quite a bit of ESSAY SETS, but as someone else pointed out, have you ever heard someone say "lets look at the ESSAY SET (well other than me of course). I can blame nobody but myself.

AH, but wait, the all powerful Internet can justify ANYTHING:

WIKI NOOKIEPEDIA (which just sounds wrong!)
The Essay Set is a miscellaneous furniture item in Animal Crossing: New Horizons. As a miscellaneous item, it can be placed on either the ground or on top of a tabletop. The Essay Set can be obtained from Nook's Cranny for 650 Bells.

Well, then if it is worth 650 bells, it MUST be a legitimate answer. :lol:
Making me feel better about myself! ☺️
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RDaleHall
Posts: 229
Joined: Mon Oct 14, 2019 9:52 pm

#337

Post by RDaleHall »

Submitted ESSAY TEST with 85% confidence. With all the key clues in the form of a question, that felt the best to complete the theme.
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Wendy Walker
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#338

Post by Wendy Walker »

After filling in the first few theme answers I noticed the S - A pattern, so when I saw ESSAY in 1D (solved via crosses; I didn't know what Substack was) I was sure it was one of the meta words. What goes with ESSAY? Why, test, of course. I scanned the rest of the clues for something that might yield "test," and bingo, there it was, 67A.
Good luck, fellow Muggles!
RichA2
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Joined: Sun Jul 05, 2020 4:22 pm

#339

Post by RichA2 »

I saw MENSA TEST as a possible solution, referring to the test that must be passed to gain admission to Mensa. It contains SA, after all. But only two of the theme answers were men’s names (SAN ANTONIO and SAMUEL ADAMS), so I went went with the more obvious ESSAY TEST.

Another clue: We were told to look for two grid answers that described the “theme,” which is an old school synonym for essay.
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eagle1279
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#340

Post by eagle1279 »

Ditto to those who saw S-A = ESSAY fairly quickly and spent the weekend trying to find confirmation for the second entry. I focused on TEST fairly early, but then tried to back-solve for the mechanism that would lead to TEST (or some other method of seeking answers). The clean answer I was seeking was nowhere to be found. Muggle expert verification gave me comfort in submitting ESSAY TEST.
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