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Re: "Seeking Answers" - October 8, 2021

Posted: Mon Oct 11, 2021 12:22 am
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.

Re: "Seeking Answers" - October 8, 2021

Posted: Mon Oct 11, 2021 12:23 am
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.🤗

Re: "Seeking Answers" - October 8, 2021

Posted: Mon Oct 11, 2021 12:35 am
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.

Re: "Seeking Answers" - October 8, 2021

Posted: Mon Oct 11, 2021 12:40 am
by EdStrong
Submitted essay redos. Oh well…

Re: "Seeking Answers" - October 8, 2021

Posted: Mon Oct 11, 2021 12:47 am
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.

Re: "Seeking Answers" - October 8, 2021

Posted: Mon Oct 11, 2021 12:47 am
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:

Re: "Seeking Answers" - October 8, 2021

Posted: Mon Oct 11, 2021 12:51 am
by GTIJohnny
ESSAY SEER here. I "really saw" many SA's throughout.

Re: "Seeking Answers" - October 8, 2021

Posted: Mon Oct 11, 2021 12:57 am
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.

Re: "Seeking Answers" - October 8, 2021

Posted: Mon Oct 11, 2021 1:26 am
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.

Re: "Seeking Answers" - October 8, 2021

Posted: Mon Oct 11, 2021 4:10 am
by Barney
SAT (Scholastic Aptitude Test) is the 100% “aha” for Essay Test.

Re: "Seeking Answers" - October 8, 2021

Posted: Mon Oct 11, 2021 6:10 am
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.

Re: "Seeking Answers" - October 8, 2021

Posted: Mon Oct 11, 2021 6:25 am
by flyingMoose
Once I found TEST and noted its quasi-symmetry with ESSAY, I quit looking for other options.

Re: "Seeking Answers" - October 8, 2021

Posted: Mon Oct 11, 2021 6:57 am
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.

Re: "Seeking Answers" - October 8, 2021

Posted: Mon Oct 11, 2021 6:59 am
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.

Re: "Seeking Answers" - October 8, 2021

Posted: Mon Oct 11, 2021 7:03 am
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.

Re: "Seeking Answers" - October 8, 2021

Posted: Mon Oct 11, 2021 7:10 am
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! ☺️

Re: "Seeking Answers" - October 8, 2021

Posted: Mon Oct 11, 2021 7:37 am
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.

Re: "Seeking Answers" - October 8, 2021

Posted: Mon Oct 11, 2021 7:38 am
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.

Re: "Seeking Answers" - October 8, 2021

Posted: Mon Oct 11, 2021 7:52 am
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.

Re: "Seeking Answers" - October 8, 2021

Posted: Mon Oct 11, 2021 8:27 am
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.