Results to Common Entries Contest MOJO6
Here are the results for the Common Entries Contest MOJO6.
See the original contest posting for the rules.
There were a total of 39 entrants. The winner was Gareth
Owen, with a score of 2.7 billion (billion=10^9), which was 3.3%
of the hypothetical maximum. Second place went to Angus Walker,
and third place to Jon Wild. Congratulations!
Here are the answer slates of the top three entrants.
1st: Gareth Owen 2nd: Angus Walker 3rd: Jon Wild
0.fish and chips 0.fish and chips 0.fish and chips
1.Guernica 1.Marilyn (Warhol) 1.Guernica
2.Poland 2.Andorra 2.Belgium
3.Cinderella 3.Little Red Riding Hood3.Sleeping Beauty
4.Steven Spielberg 4.Steven Spielberg 4.Steven Spielberg
5.Sicilian Defence 5.Sicilian Defence 5.Sicilian Defence
6.Poodle 6.German Shepherd 6.Labrador
7.Spot 7.Rover 7.Rover
8.earthquake 8.lightning 8.lightning
9.dogma 9.different 9.dictionary
And here are the next three.
4th: Gerrit de Blaauw5th: Aditya Bhashyam6th: Jim Ward
0.fish and chips 0.fish and chips 0.fish and chips
1.Guernica 1.Guernica 1.Guernica
2.Andorra 2.The Netherlands 2.Austria
3.Cinderella 3.Snow White 3.Cinderella
4.Steven Spielberg 4.Steven Spielberg 4.Ron Howard
5.Giuoco Piano 5.Sicilian Defence 5.Sicilian Defence
6.Labrador 6.Doberman 6.Poodle
7.Fido 7.Rover 7.Fido
8.earthquake 8.earthquake 8.lightning
9.drink 9.drink 9.dance
Since there seems to be a consensus that giving intentionally
wrong answers, or repeating back the question, is somehow "cheating,"
or maybe just a bad strategy, I tried some harder questions this time.
But I don't seem to have a very good sense of what constitutes a hard
question, and several questions that I though were pretty hard turned
out to have some fairly popular answers. I do note that a number of
entrants remarked that this was the hardest MOJO yet, so it's not
just me. . .
I was worried that the question on chess openings might scare off
entrants who didn't know any chess openings off the top of their head.
But while the number of entrants (39), is a bit on the low side,
it's not significantly so, so I guess it was OK. I suppose that
these are pretty chess-opening-friendly newsgroups.
---------------------------------------------------------------
Here are the scores of all the entrants.
Name #0 #1 #2 #3 #4 #5 #6 #7 #8 #9 Score Score/Max
---- -- -- -- -- -- -- -- -- -- -- ----- ---------
Hypothetical Maximum 21 15 9 14 24 12 9 10 20 4 8.23e+10
1.Gareth Owen 21 15 2 14 24 12 9 10 12 1 2.74e+09 3.333e-02
2.Angus Walker 21 3 5 6 24 12 6 10 20 4 2.61e+09 3.175e-02
3.Jon Wild 21 15 6 3 24 12 7 10 20 1 2.29e+09 2.778e-02
4.Gerrit de Blaauw 21 15 5 14 24 3 7 8 12 2 2.13e+09 2.593e-02
5.Aditya Bhashyam 21 15 9 10 24 12 1 10 12 2 1.96e+09 2.381e-02
6.Jim Ward 21 15 5 14 1 12 9 8 20 2 7.62e+08 9.259e-03
7.Myke Cuthbert 21 15 9 6 24 4 2 10 20 1 6.53e+08 7.937e-03
8.Ray Newport 3 15 9 14 24 12 7 2 12 2 5.49e+08 6.667e-03
9.Sarah Gaymon 4 15 6 14 24 4 7 4 20 2 5.42e+08 6.584e-03
10.Ben Zimmer 21 15 2 14 24 12 1 4 12 4 4.88e+08 5.926e-03
11.Steven Howard 21 3 6 14 7 10 2 10 20 1 1.48e+08 1.800e-03
12.Andy Saunders 21 3 9 10 24 1 6 8 20 1 1.31e+08 1.587e-03
13.Lejonel Norling 21 15 9 10 7 4 3 2 20 1 9.53e+07 1.157e-03
14.Martin Round 21 1 1 14 24 12 7 2 20 4 9.48e+07 1.152e-03
15.Erland Sommarskog 4 15 2 10 7 10 9 8 12 1 7.26e+07 8.818e-04
16.Barbara 21 3 5 6 24 10 6 4 3 2 6.53e+07 7.937e-04
17.Richard Bean 21 15 9 1 2 12 2 10 12 3 4.9e+07 5.952e-04
18.QuickDraw 21 15 5 3 1 12 2 10 20 2 4.54e+07 5.511e-04
19.Andrew Hartley 21 2 1 10 24 10 9 10 1 4 3.63e+07 4.409e-04
20.Barry Flinter 21 1 1 6 24 10 6 10 20 1 3.63e+07 4.409e-04
21.Joseph Marriott 21 2 1 14 7 10 6 4 20 1 1.98e+07 2.401e-04
22.Jesse Preston 3 1 5 10 24 3 7 10 20 1 1.51e+07 1.837e-04
23.David Hill 3 2 6 3 24 4 6 10 12 2 1.49e+07 1.814e-04
24.Andy Jakcsy 1 3 1 10 24 10 9 10 20 1 1.3e+07 1.575e-04
25.Paul Atkinson 21 1 9 1 7 2 7 10 20 3 1.11e+07 1.350e-04
26.Ken Grace 1 15 1 14 2 12 9 10 20 1 9.07e+06 1.102e-04
27.John Gerson 4 3 5 14 2 10 2 8 12 2 6.45e+06 7.839e-05
28.Peter Lewis 1 3 6 10 24 10 1 10 12 1 5.18e+06 6.299e-05
29.Stacy Brown 1 15 1 10 24 1 9 10 3 3 2.92e+06 3.543e-05
30.Heidi King 3 1 5 6 24 4 2 10 12 1 2.07e+06 2.520e-05
31.Andrew Krywaniuk 1 1 5 6 2 10 9 8 20 2 1.73e+06 2.100e-05
32.Neil Sunderland 4 1 9 3 24 12 2 8 1 2 9.95e+05 1.209e-05
33.Kevin Stone 3 1 1 3 24 3 9 8 12 1 5.6e+05 6.803e-06
34.Eytan Zweig 21 2 1 14 24 4 3 2 1 1 3.39e+05 4.115e-06
35.Nick Selwyn 21 1 9 3 7 2 1 10 1 2 1.59e+05 1.929e-06
36.Julius T. Thiele 1 3 5 10 1 4 3 1 20 1 3.6e+04 4.374e-07
37.Mark Strycharski 1 3 2 1 24 4 2 1 20 1 2.3e+04 2.799e-07
38.Susan 1 1 6 14 1 1 1 10 20 1 1.68e+04 2.041e-07
39.Stephen Perry 3 1 1 14 7 1 1 1 3 1 882 1.072e-08
---------------------------------------------------------------------------
And here is the specific breakdown of answers for each of the
questions, with commentary.
> 0. Name a type of food associated with England.
21 fish and chips
4 Yorkshire pudding
3 chips
3 roast beef
1 bangers and mash
1 beef
1 crumpets
1 haggis
1 pancakes
1 sausage (i.e. bangers)
1 steak and kidney pie
1 tea
I changed the question from "food and drink" to just "food," in the fear
that "tea" would otherwise be the obvious answer. One brave soul
answered "tea" anyway.
I broke down the results by timezone, and see no differences that are
clearly statistically significant. Here is the breakdown:
Time zones +01 (11 entrants)
----------------------------
6 fish and chips
3 roast beef
1 chips
1 Yorkshire Pudding
Time zones other than +01 (28 entrants)
---------------------------------------
15 fish and chips
3 Yorkshire pudding
2 chips
1 bangers and mash
1 beef
1 crumpets
1 haggis
1 pancakes
1 sausages (ie bangers)
1 steak and kidney pie
1 tea
The second set includes one entrant whose timezone was marked GMT (they
picked ``crumpet''). Since their e-mail included a comment that
"I don't know whether ``crumpets'' and ``scones'' are the same, but
they both say England to me,"
I assumed that this entrant was not from England.
> 1. Name a work of art produced in the last 100 years.
15 Guernica
3 American Gothic
3 Blue Poles (Pollock)
3 Marilyn (Warhol)
2 Mona Lisa
2 Water Lilies (Monet)
1 art
1 Campbells soup cans (Warhol)
1 Campbell Soup Series II Old Fashion (Warhol)
1 Citizen Kane
1 Gone Fishing (Norman Rockwell)
1 Lily Pond (Monet)
1 LOVE (sculpture in Philadelphia)
1 Marilyn 3 Times (Warhol, 1962)
1 Reclining Figure (a Henry Moore Sculpture)
1 The Dream (Picasso)
1 The Starry Night
I really thought that this was a very difficult question, and was a
little sad to see that it wasn't nearly as hard as I thought. Oh well.
A check of Warhol's pictures as http://www.ocaiw.com/warhol.htm
shows numerous Marilyn pictures, and numerous Campbell's
soup can pictures. So ``Marilyn'' is ruled different from
``Marilyn 3 Times,'' and ``Campbell's Soup Cans,'' is different
from ``Campell Soup Series II Old Fashion.'' The same goes for
Monet, who has about a million pictures of water lilies. So absent
a completely identical title, I can't tell if the entrants are
referring to the same picture of water lilies.
``Mona Lisa'' and ``Starry Night'' are both incorrect answers -- ``Mona
Lisa'' is presumably intentionally wrong.
> 2. Name a country in Europe other than Andorra, France, Germany, the
> United Kingdom, Spain, Italy, or Switzerland.
9 The Netherlands (=Holland)
6 Belgium
5 Andorra
5 Austria
2 Poland
2 Sweden
1 Denmark
1 England
1 France
1 Luxembourg
1 Portugal
1 Republic of Ireland
1 Russia
1 San Marino
1 Spain
1 Switzerland
This is part of a series of similar European-country questions from
previous contests -- those questions are reproduced below. Presumably,
as more of the obvious countries are eliminated, giving a wrong
answer becomes more attractive. Even with all these answers eliminated,
a correct answer is still the best.
Here are the results from previous contests:
>> From MOJO5:
>>
>> 1. Name a country in Europe other than Andorra, France, Germany, the
>> United Kingdom, Liechtenstein, San Marino, Vatican City, or Singapore.
>
> 23 Italy
> 8 Spain
> 4 Andorra
> 3 Switzerland
> 1 Albania
> 1 Belgium
> 1 England
> 1 France
> 1 Holland
> 1 Portugal
> 1 Singapore
>
>For those of you who don't remember, or weren't around at the time,
>I asked similar questions in MOJO1 and MOJO2. Here is the
>question in MOJO1:
>
>>> MOJO1: 6. Name any country in Europe other than Andorra.
>
>> 38 France
>> 6 Germany
>> 5 England
>> 4 United Kingdom (UKoGBaNI)
>> 3 Andorra
>> 3 Spain
>> 1 Belgium
>> 1 Britain
>
>And here's the question in MOJO2:
>
>>> MOJO2: 2. Name a country in Europe other than Lichtenstein or France.
>>
>> 22 Germany
>> 8 England
>> 7 France
>> 5 Spain
>> 4 Italy
>> 3 Switzerland
>> 2 Lichtenstein
>> 1 Andorra
>> 1 Great Britain
>> 1 Portugal
Back to MOJO6:
> 3. Name a fairy tale.
14 Cinderella
10 Snow White
6 Little Red Riding Hood
3 Hansel and Gretel
3 Sleeping Beauty
1 Beauty and the Beast
1 Goldilocks and the Three Bears
1 Jack and Jill
This one is fairly straightforward. One entrant commented that
``Sleeping Beauty'' had to be the ideal answer for any regular
reader of rec.puzzles, which hadn't even crossed my mind when I
came up with this question.
> 4. Name a film director.
24 Steven Spielberg
7 Alfred Hitchcock
2 Stanley Kubrick
2 Martin Scorsese
1 Ron Howard
1 George Lucas
1 Woody Allen
1 Quentin Tarantino
Thanks to Dave Gates for suggesting this question. I originally was
going to thank him next to the original question in the contest posting,
but I was worried that I would make "Dave Gates" an attractive answer
for this question. In retrospect, that fear was probably ridiculous.
> 5. Give the name of a chess opening (different names for the same chess
> opening will be counted as the same).
12 Sicilian Defence (= Sicilian)
10 Ruy Lopez (= Spanish)
4 Queen's Gambit
4 King's Pawn Opening (= King's pawn moves forward two spaces)
3 Giuoco Piano (= Italian)
2 English Opening
1 Four Knights' Opening
1 Queen's Pawn Game
1 Stonewall Attack
1 Accelerated Dragon (Sicilian defense)
This was one of the questions I intended to be fairly difficult. I
assumed that some entrants wouldn't know any chess openings, so would
have to figure out a web search that gave them a good answer (I also
wondered if something like this might deter people from entering. . .)
But given the composition of these newsgroups, perhaps the vast majority
of people here are already familiar with chess openings.
The parenthetical note next to ``Accelerated Dragon'' was placed there
by the entrant, and not by me. Since specific answers are to be counted
separately from general answers, the ``Accelerated Dragon'' stands
alone.
> 6. Name a breed of dog.
9 Poodle
7 Labrador (=Labrador Retriever)
6 German Shepherd (=Alsatian)
3 Golden Retriever
2 Cocker Spaniel
2 Dalmatian
2 Spaniel
2 Terrier
1 Beagle
1 Boxer
1 Collie
1 Doberman
1 Greyhound
1 Irish Setter
There are many spaniels that are not cocker spaniels. But as far as I
can tell, all Labrador's are retrievers.
> 7. Give a good name for a dog.
10 Spot
10 Rover
8 Fido
4 Max
2 Sam
2 Rex
1 Spike
1 Ranger
1 Rusty
The last two questions really show that I really have no idea what
constitutes a difficult question. After coming up with what I considered
impossibly difficult questions, like numbers 1 (art) and 5 (chess
openings), I threw in two easy ones on dogs. Yet the maximum scores are
lower on these "easy" dog questions. Go figure.
> 8. Name an event of nature by which a person could be accidentally
> killed.
20 lightning (= struck by lightning = lightning strike =
= stroke of lightning)
12 earthquake
3 tornado
1 avalanche
1 flood
1 hurricane
1 meteorite
This one is copied from Mark Brader's Rare Entries Contest, MSB4.
It's somewhat amusing that the best answer in my contest,
``earthquake,'' is one of the answers tied for first in his contest.
On the other hand, the worst answer in his contest (barring wrong answers,
such as ``crushed between copulating walruses''), is ``avalanche,''
which is one of the answers tied for worst in my contest.
Here are the results from the question in MSB4:
>| 7. Name an event of nature by which a person could be accidentally killed.
>
> 6 Avalanche
> 5 Tsunami
> 4 Meteorite [= Meteor]
> 3 Stampede <1 Wildebeest stampede; 1 Buffalo stampede>
> 2 Blizzard [= Snowfall]
> 2 Discharge of CO2 from lake
> 2 Falling tree
> 2 Geyser eruption
> 2 Undertow [= Rip tide]
> 2 Volcanic eruption
> 1 Asphyxiated by volcanic fumes
> 1 Earthquake
> 1 Falling icicle
> 1 Flash flood
> 1 Flood
> 1 Miscarriage, caused by shock to mother of seeing husband gored to
> death by a wild boar, driven mad by having a lightning-felled
> tree nearly kill it
> 1 Poisonous spider bite
> 1 Pyroclastic flow
> 1 Tide (on coastal flats)
> 1 Tornado
> 1 Typhoon
> 1 Whirlpool
> WRONG:
> 1 Crushed between copulating walruses
> 1 Discharge of CH3 from seabed upon landslide
> 1 Golf
> 1 Spontaneous human combustion
> 1 Spontaneous quantum tunneling
Getting back to MOJO6,
> 9. Name a word which begins with the letter d, and is over four letters
> long.
4 different
3 director
2 dance
2 danger
2 death
2 delete
2 diamond
2 drink
1 daddy
1 dangerous
1 darkness
1 debug
1 dedication
1 Denmark
1 Detroit
1 Devil
1 dictionary
1 doctor
1 dogma
1 dollar
1 donkey
1 door
1 double
1 domesday
1 doughnut
1 dragon
1 draws
1 dream
In my previous contests, I avoided questions as obviously difficult
as this, reasoning that questions so obviously difficult encourage
entrants to give intentionally wrong answers, like ``d'', or
to repeat back the question. But since this hasn't been happening lately,
I went ahead and gave it. And lo and behold, only one person gave an
incorrect answer (``door''), which I suspect was simply a mistake on
their part.
The entrant who answered ``dictionary'' had an explanation which I find
pretty neat:
Just want to say that if I have the "intended" answer in
question 9, it is a brilliant question. I imagine each
contestant pulling out their dictionary and skimming
through the "D" pages, till it hits them...
This almost makes me wish I had intended "dictionary." Mostly, I just
intended thh question to be hard, although I had "director" in mind. I
hadn't planned on "different" at all -- the parenthetical comment in
question #5 was a last minute addition, and I didn't notice when I
wrote it that it affected question #9.
Well, that's it. Things are a bit busy now, so it may be a while
before the next contest.
Momo