Almost a year ago, I decided to sign up for a hunt in West Malaysia—the infamous STFOGA Hunt. Unfortunately, a few days before the event, the hunt was postponed. Luckily, grandmasters Vincent Woo and VK Chong, upon a special request by the members of Riddle Raiders Bloggers, were kind enough to set a short unofficial hunt that Saturday, so my journey was not a total waste. It turned out to be a killer hunt! There were only 20 questions, but it felt like 40.
A couple of weeks later, grandmaster Vincent challenged me to set some questions, of which the answers should be restricted only to those answers of the unofficial bloggers' hunt. Therefore, one was able to pick from a pool of only 20 possible answers. I took up the challenge and set 3 questions, and they eventually became the subjects of heated debates in the Riddle Raiders blog.
One of those questions was like this:
Q1) Spearlike weapon connected to a drawing item.
One of the complaints to this question was that "the possibilities were practically limitless." But I stood firm on my grounds.
It is ideal to set a question that is exclusively fitting for a particular answer, to the exclusion of any other possible answers. However, in my opinion, in some cases, the exclusiveness of the fit does not lie in the question, but instead in the answer. Let me explain.
The question above may be referring to anything. There must be a lot of items that can fit "spearlike weapon"; and many more items that can fit "drawing item". In that case, the possible combinations can be daunting! However, in this particular case, there were only 20 possible answers. In this special case, it was possible to work one's way backwards from the answers to trace back to the question. In that sense it's still an exclusive fit, but the approach is from answer to question, instead of the other way round.
Therefore, the solver would have had to scan through the possible answers, spot FIRST KNIGHT amongst them, and then work his way to LANCE (spearlike weapon) + LOT (drawing item). Of course he must know the movie of the same title, FIRST KNIGHT, in order to solve the question. In that movie, King Arthur referred to Lancelot as the First Knight, you see. Without looking at the possible answers, it would have been a very random chance to figure out the answer.
More recently, I hunted in the AMC Hunt, which was co-clerked by Liew Kok Seng and Dato' Ramesh. In an email to Kok Seng prior to the CNY Rat Hunt 2008, I decided to tease him with this question:
Q2) KAKAK, SEBAGAI CONTOH.
Though I can't remember if those were the exact words I used. Again, the possible answers were to be found within the 40 answers of the AMC Hunt. Notice that the question may be referring to anything at all. Yet it is still possible to find an exclusively fitting answer by means of working one's way backwards from the list of possible answers. If one were to work his way from the question, the search would have been limitless!
However, if one were to scan the possible answers—40 of them—then there might be a chance that he will realise that we are looking for FULL HOUSE. To those who play poker, it will sooner or later come to them that the combination of 2 Aces and 3 Kings makes a FULL HOUSE.
In the KK City Hunt 2008, we had a similar question:
Q) For example, ne or tu?
Again with limitless possibilities, really. There is just no way to arrive at the answer by means of working from the question. The only way to get the answer is to work one's way from the possible signboards within that sector.
A) Semi Irama
Irama is the Malay translation of TUNE in English. Therefore Semi (meaning half) of TUNE could be "ne" or "tu". An exclusively fitting answer which I was unable to find under time pressure in the rain. I am not aware of other possible answers within that sector, and no one has approach me so far to suggest another possible answer there.
After criticising the Clerk-of-Course for some other questions in this hunt, it is only fair that I compliment him for this well-crafted question.
2 comments:
yes. we din get this and we were TOTALLY "fuk - pronounced in Cantonese" or in Malay, akur. simple question with little words are the most difficult to solve. i love KAKAK. wei, corny, next time let us guess that ler.... choose from a pool of answer. tat would be interesting!!!!
Aiyah, CK, don't worry lah, I have some more entertaining questions in my question bank.
Earlier, I was just preparing myself for a possible task of handling the Sutera Hunt mah. Wanted to tease some KL grandmasters with my masterpieces. But now I have decided not to do Sutera, because I want to hunt too! So my masterpieces will have to wait for a bit. Never mind, I will give you people some of them in KK Challenge 4!
But pressure team Main Tembak to do their hunt first. And then after that I will unleash some of my masterpieces lah.
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