Let's become british spies AKA logic puzzles challenge

Szlia

Szlia

Member
6,570
1,326
The Government Communications Headquarters, true to the tradition of creating puzzles to hire spies, posted a christmas puzzle on its web site. It's one of those "solve step 1 to find step 2, etc" thing.

Step one is a tedious picross puzzle that forms a QR code that leads to:http://www.gchq.gov.uk/puzz

Step 2 is 6 multi-choice questions, so pretty damn tedious to brute force.
Q1. Which of these is not the odd one out?

STARLET
SONNET
SAFFRON
SHALLOT
TORRENT
SUGGEST

My theory is that the answer is SHALLOT. Starlet is the only one without a double consonant, Sonnet is the only one not 7 letters long, Saffron is the only one not ending by T, Torrent is the only one not starting by S and Suggest is the only one being a verb (not super convinced by this last criteria).


Q2. What comes after GREEN, RED, BROWN, RED, BLUE, -, YELLOW, PINK?

RED
YELLOW
GREEN
BROWN
BLUE
PINK

Merrith: The digits of Pi using the value of the snooker balls (a bit lame because no snooker ball is worth 9 so they put a dash instead)

Q3. Which is the odd one out?

MATURE
LOVE
WILDE
BUCKET
BECKHAM
SHAKA

Picasso: SHAKA is the only one without a E. (maybe too simple?)
Palum: SHAKA is the only one whose char index sum is odd.
Troll: the only one whose associated NATO phonetic alphabet is the last name instead of the first name. Victor Mature, Mike Love, Oscar Wilde, Charlie Bucket, Romeo Beckham, but Shaka Zulu.

Q4. I was looking at a man on top of a hill using flag semaphore to send a message, but to me it looked like a very odd message. It began "ZGJJQ EZRXM" before seemingly ending with a hashtag. Which hashtag?

#SGM
#SEM
#SEN
#SGN
#TEN
#TGN

The answer is #SGM for sure. The guy is on the wrong side of the guy signaling so get all the letters wrong. The guy is signaling HAPPY CHRIS(TMAS).


Q5. What comes after 74, 105, 110, 103, 108, 101, 98, 101, 108, 108?

108
101
115
123
111
103

Valechec: Jinglebells in ASCII


Q6. What comes next: D, D, P, V, C, C, D, ?

F
E
D
C
B
A

Valechec: Initial of Santa's raindeers (Dasher, Dancer, Prancer, Vixen, Comet, Cupid, Donner, and Blitzen. from a XIXth century poem)

Step 3:Director GCHQ's Christmas puzzle

Part 3 consists of four questions. The answer to each puzzle is a single word, which can be used to create a URL.

Q1:Complete the sequence:
Buck, Cod, Dahlia, Rook, Cuckoo, Rail, Haddock, ?

Palum:CUB, the entire sequence is a palindrom.

Q2:Sum:
pest + ?(unfixed - riots) = ?

Answer isZONE. We don't know why.

Reddit knows:
each word is an anagram of a number in french. PEST = SEPT = 7, UNFIXED = DIX-NEUF = 19, RIOTS = TROIS = 3. So 7 + sqt(19-3) = 11 = ONZE = ZONE.


Q3:Samuel says:if agony is the opposite of denial, and witty is the opposite of tepid, then what is the opposite of smart?


Answer isOFTEN. We don't know why.

Reddit knows:
Each word is the opposite of the other in morse code...

Q4:The answers to the following cryptic crossword clues are all words of the same length. We have provided the first four clues only. What is the seventh and last answer?

1) Withdraw as sailors hold festive sing-song
2) It receives a worker and returns a queen
3) Try and sing medley of violin parts
4) Fit for capture
5)
6)
7) ?

Answer isLAYERED. We don't know why.

Stage 4:Director GCHQ's Christmas puzzle

Part 4 consists of three questions, the answers to which can be combined to make an IP address.

Find the missing number in the following sequences:

A) 2, 4, 8, 1, 3, 6, 18, 26, ?, 12, 24, 49, 89, 134, 378, 656, 117, 224, 548, 1456, 2912, 4934, 8868, 1771, 3543, ...

Szlia: Answer is52. The sequence is the powers of 2 written by skipping every other number. So: 2, 4, 8, 16, 32, 64, 128, 256, 512, 1024, etc....

B) -101250000, -1728000, -4900, 360, 675, 200, ?, ...

Answer is30.87. We don't know why.

But reddit knows:
The pattern:
9^2 x -5^3 x 10^4
8^2 x -3^3 x 10^3
7^2 x -1^3 x 10^2
6^2 x 1^3 x 10^1
5^2 x 3^3 x 10^0
4^2 x 5^3 x 10^-1
3^2 x 7^3 x 10^-2 = 30.87

C) 321, 444, 675, 680, 370, 268, 949, 206, 851, ?, ...

Szlia: answer is208.

Because:
You have to consider each digit independently, like a 0 to 9 wheel. and from the first three digits you kind of weave a +1 thread a +2 thread and a +3 thread. What I mean is that each thread goes 1st slot to 2nd slot to 3rd slot to 1st slot etc. So:

The +1 thread goes: 3.. -> .4. -> ..5 -> 6.. -> .7. -> etc

The +2 thread goes: .2. -> ..4 -> 6.. -> .8. -> ..0 -> etc

The +3 thread goes ..1 -> 4.. -> .7. -> ..0 -> 3.. -> etc

So the answer is 208.

Final Stage:Director GCHQ's Christmas Puzzle - Part 5


WHERE

???


SUM

Hoss: 14 orXIV


ALGEBRAIC

Szlia (with the finishing touch by reddit):Kronecker(The first letter of each winning move - Kronecker being the mathematician that gave his name to the matrix multiplication used in the problem).


MANIFOLD AGREEMENT

wtf?


LOOTER

huh?


MESSAGE

Szlia: Letter sudoko with MERRYXMAS as the diagonal. Answer isMXAHRYESP.


GRAPH THEORY

I don't even...


WORDSEARCH

???


REGISTRATION

Szlia: the abscence chart results in the picture of a little duck. So:DUCKor DUCKLING.


CROSSWORD

???


CIPHER

???
 
Agraza

Agraza

Registered Hutt
6,890
521
cool, wish I had more time to tinker with it. I doubt I have the information to crack it. I'd need to research puzzles a fair amount to be confident of any answer there.
 
Szlia

Szlia

Member
6,570
1,326
I'll edit the first post to put the most convincing theories.

Picasso's answer for Q3 has the benefit of working, but it seems a little too easy, especially after Q1 that asks you to find 5 of this type of straightforward conditions. Still, too simple does not mean wrong, so unless we find something that seems more convincing we'll go with Shaka.
 
Palum

Palum

what Suineg set it to
23,520
33,906
Mature is the only one with 3 vowels?
Love is the only one with 4 letters?
Shaka only one that doesn't have a vowel as a second letter?
Mature is the only one that isn't a surname?

Seems like closer to Q1 in that all have a unique quality besides one.
 
P

Picasso3

Silver Baronet of the Realm
11,333
5,322
Q6 maybe recurring sequence by assigning numbers to alphabet
D is 4, d d is 16 which is p, ddp is 256 which is 9 full alphabets and 22 letters v,

Didn't go further and i don't know how these things normally go so I'm firing from the hip
 
Palum

Palum

what Suineg set it to
23,520
33,906
I think number 3 is SHAKA. If you assign the characters to an array and look at the index and sum each one, they sum to: 72,50,48,56,36,35. SHAKA is literally the only 'odd' one.
 
Palum

Palum

what Suineg set it to
23,520
33,906
Picasso_sl said:
Q6 maybe recurring sequence by assigning numbers to alphabet
D is 4, d d is 16 which is p, ddp is 256 which is 9 full alphabets and 22 letters v,

Didn't go further and i don't know how these things normally go so I'm firing from the hip
Click to expand...
May be onto something but this doesn't work as written, 256*22 = 5632%26 = 16 not 3
 
Palum

Palum

what Suineg set it to
23,520
33,906
I am beginning to think number 1 is Sonnet because it is the only even numbered word (6 characters).
 
Palum

Palum

what Suineg set it to
23,520
33,906
U ppl it's called macros thanks Amazon for not blocking:

D
E
F
A
C
E

Dumb URL they have amateurs working there.

Anyway part 3:

Director GCHQ's Christmas Puzzle - Part 3


Congratulations on solving Part 2 of the Director's puzzle.



Part 3 consists of four questions. The answer to each puzzle is a single word, which can be used to create a URL.



  1. Complete the sequence:
    Buck, Cod, Dahlia, Rook, Cuckoo, Rail, Haddock, ?
  2. Sum:
    pest + ?(unfixed - riots) = ?
  3. Samuel says: if agony is the opposite of denial, and witty is the opposite of tepid, then what is the opposite of smart?
  4. The answers to the following cryptic crossword clues are all words of the same length. We have provided the first four clues only. What is the seventh and last answer?

    1 Withdraw as sailors hold festive sing-song
    2 It receives a worker and returns a queen
    3 Try and sing medley of violin parts
    4 Fit for capture
    5
    6
    7 ?
 
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