Stats – The puzzle was accessed 631 times. We had 70 solvers completing and submitting the grid, ignoring multiple submissions. One submission was incomplete and ignored for scoring. Of those who submitted 43 managed to complete the grid with zero errors and 26 went on to get the maximum possible score of 152. We had ten first time solvers – Mohan Chunkanth, Sriram, Pavan Kumar, Priya Shyam, Srinivas Kotamarthi, Sudha Bhaskaran, Wei Hwa Huang, Helen Johnson, Jawahar Surti and Frank. Welcome to 1ACross.
Here’s the Puzzle and a note from the setter:
You have no doubt heard of The Great Indian Rope Trick, where the rope is reported to take a vertical position. In The Great British Rope Trick, however, the rope was horizontal! It was the first step in the creation of something that was truly monumental. Ancient builders in Britain probably used just a rope, and a place to fix one end of it firmly, to draw a circle. But did they have a more intimate knowledge of geometry? Find out what they probably knew and what they used it for …
Click here for the PDF Version
Bonus Questions
- What symbol would students of mathematics be reminded of when seeing a singular object like 14 D?
-
What examples of enigmatic modern “alien” art may have been created by modern British practitioners of the rope trick (well maybe they used a board too)? (4,7)
Click Here for the Annotations:
Across:
1 S(NOT<)E, 4 (SHEETING-ITS)*, 9 ra of IVAN THE, 10 HAReM, 13 ~alter, 16 U TIN<, 18 (+S)PIN(-s), 19 TRIP* around W, 20 DD, 21 DD, 22 Telescopic, 23 R PIE*, 24 ST ME<, 25 (FRENCH DOORS-FRONDS)*, 26 HAN D, 27 Telescopic, 28 ERNE around I, 29 RA(I)N, 30 (I HATE)* ST, 31 SAT< in SHED.
Down: 1 SEA(-l), 2 TOP*, 3 Telescopic, 4 H(O)E, 5 RON<, 6 Telescopic, 7 CD,MD, 8 FE LT, 11 CD,DD, 12 MINI(MUM) W AGE, 13 (MATRONS ROSE)*, 14 (HINT RIOTS)* around L, 15 REP (CLAN MEET)*, 16 (UNDRESS THOR)*, 17 IN EX PENSIVE.
Answers to the Bonus Questions:
1: The Symbol Pi
2: CROP CIRCLES
Here’s the Score card (sorted by total and then alphabetically)
Congrats to the 26 solvers who maxed the score and to every one who participated. Very well tried.
Grid Rating: The puzzle got an excellent score of 8.1. It got 17 perfect 10s – i.e 25% of those who submitted thought it was perfect. The minimum score was 2.
Top 3 Clues: The most favorite clues were for “IVAN THE TERRIBLE” with 32 votes, “MINIMUM WAGE” with 20 votes and “INEXPENSIVE” with 12 votes.
Hope you all enjoyed this fun puzzle. Thanks to “The Oracle” for a fun and entertaining puzzle with a unique grid construction – You make it look easy:). Thanks to all our solvers for your support and wonderful comments.
I also take this opportunity to share with our readers that Raju Umamaheshwar, who was an ardent crossword fan and who has consistently participated in all our 1ACGrids passed away last Saturday night due to a heart attack. When I saw his name while compiling this leaderboard, it reminded me of our many interactions since he frequently used to write to me after solving the grids here.
We will miss him dearly and offer our condolences to the bereaving family.
Comments on the Puzzle
1. oracle always brings a cheer by swift and elegant clueing to cryptics
2. Quick and easy
3. OK
4. EASY CLUES. BUT THE SECOND QUESTION IS A ANAG OF MODERN ET ART COULD BE ANYTHING
5. Fairly easy as there was little to no deception in the clues
6. Easy but enjoyable. Bonus questions were unrelated to the cryptic crossword. Could consider including a cryptic element to get the answers
7. Easy to solve especially after IXL round
8. Enjoyed it
9. Nice
10. Nice idea
11. Loved it!!!
12. EASY SOLVE
13. Engineered to perfection.
14. enjoyable
15. Wonderful
16. Nice
17. Rocking !
18. Very nice and entertaining grid
19. Overall, a bit too easy compared to what this site usually delivers. Nice idea, but not much of a challenge to solve.
20. OVER IN A JIFFY
21. Very entertaining
22.
23. Nice easy puzzle for a Sunday afternoon
24. Not so hard grid, but tricky questions.
25. Simple and elegant
26. Easy one
27. First timer! had fun solving it.
28. Lovely puzzle
29. Interesting puzzle!
30. Nice and easy … smooth !
31. Liked the way the grid also matched the theme
32. Excellent
33. clean and simple clues
34. good fun..but prefer the earlier format where grid was visible while answering bonus questions
35. none
36. Good timepass.
37. QUICK AND ENJOYABLE
38. Too many anagrams, indirect anagrams etc.
39. Easier than most
40. Nice puzzle
41. Very ingeniously constructed, but I marked it down a little as the theme was so obvious from the start – I prefer an “aha” moment!
42. Nice Puzzle!
43. Enjoyable puzzle!
44. Good compilation
45. Fun
46. Good fun.
47. interesting clues some challenging
48. nice fun puzzle
49. Simple and fun puzzle! Liked how Stonehenge was graphically represented in the grid.
50. Wonderfully inventive and a joy to solve. Thank you!
51. Fairly easy one
52. Very enjoyable puzzle
53. A very easy puzzle. Most often I find the theme questions that appear after these 1across puzzles very vague. The theme is also not well-defined in many cases.
54. It’s okay.
55. It was much easier than I anticipated!
56. couldn’t understand the connect of the second bonus question
57. I learned a few things from it, including an alternative spelling for TWERP! The ‘some’ in the clue for HAND was misleading; it would have worked just as well without it.
58. This was my first attempt. I enjoyed solving it.
59. A really good tough one.
60. Simple puzzle. Not sure of the answer to the questions.
61. SIMPLY AMAZING Just enjoyed every bit of the puzzle.Hats off to the setter.
62. Very nice puzzle. But easy, though.
63. The clues should be a bit tougher to be truly enjoyable
64. Fairly easy but enjoyable
65. Easy puzzle -difficult bonus question
66. Very easy grid
67. interesting as usual
68. Thank you for the puzzle!
69. A fun newbie level quickie. The hardest part was the second bonus question.
70. Nice grid construction