Stats: The puzzle page was loaded 433 times. 63 visitors had a go at it and 39 solvers completed and submitted the puzzle (of which 35 solvers completed the bonus form). The remaining 24 solved it partly or fully but did not submit. 22 solvers got the full score.
If you enjoy our puzzles, you would also like our puzzle collections that have been published worldwide.
Double Spaced<<< Click Here for the Puzzle Post
Here is the solution grid:
BONUS QUESTIONS:
Q1.Six examples of the title in the grid ANS: TWOSOME, COPY, IMAGE, CLONE, TWIN, REPLICA (Hidden as NINAs)
Q2. Identify the Shakespearean quote hidden in the puzzle (3,5,3,7,4,2,4,4) ANS:ILL DEEDS ARE DOUBLED WITH AN EVIL WORD (Clue Acrostic)
Annotations
| Ref. | Clue | Solution | Annotation |
| 9A | Indulged in Marie Antoinette’s advice? (3, 4) | ATE CAKE | CD |
| 10A | Life insurance specialist to take measures before the second half of the second month (7) | ACTUARY | ACT+febrUARY |
| 11A | Lose consciousness in a short time around early sign of winter (5) | SWOON | S(W)OON |
| 12A | Dr. Evil and Austin Powers, say, roused all cast (4, 5) | DUAL ROLES | (ROUSED ALL)* |
| 13A | Early course selection of university programs initially (4) | SOUP | Selection Of University Programs |
| 14A | Essential ingredients of wine party finally go sour within the building (6) | INDOOR | wINe+DO+gO+souR |
| 15A | Donkey Kong, for example, in Budapest (3) | APE | budAPEst |
| 17A | Snarky reply from parent starts to scare apologetic youngster seeking more empathy (4, 2) | SAYS ME | Scare Apologetic Youngster Seeking More Empathy |
| 18A | Add slowly in endless silence (6) | INSTIL | IN+STILL-L |
| 21A | Rabbit’s mom performs without a tail (3) | DOE | DOES-S |
| 22A | Extra in chemistry class: lanthanum and beryllium containing iron (3, 3) | LAB FEE | LA+B(FE)E |
| 24A | Defeat within? (4) | WHIP | W+HIP |
| 26A | Obtrusive instant message checking to see if cell phone is active (9) | IMPINGING | IM+PINGING |
| 28A | Unit agreement on the radio (5) | PIECE | “PEACE” |
| 29A | Broke away in the beginning, returned last month (7) | SECEDED | SE(DEC<)ED |
| 30A | Lahijan resident and setter published one article (7) | IRANIAN | I+RAN+I+AN |
| 1D | Entwistle’s primary role: leader of “Band Aid” (7) | BASSIST | Band+ASSIST |
| 2D | Drive people out of Delaware, quietly leap out in disguise (10) | DEPOPULATE | DE+P+(LEAP OUT)* |
| 3D | Wulfstan, for one, sat in assembly (5) | SAINT | (SAT IN)* |
| 4D | Improperly enacted a social event (3, 5) | TEA DANCE | (ENACTED A)* |
| 5D | Taken aback in cool aha moment? Thank you (6) | MAHALO | (coOL AHA Moment)< |
| 6D | Half-step, traversing around Republican British town (9) | STARCROSS | ST+A(R)CROSS |
| 7D | Autumn descent (4) | FALL | DD |
| 8D | Nomads guardedly on vacation, pursued by spies abroad (7) | GYPSIES | GuardedlY+SPIES* |
| 15D | Essentially, rehearsals with benchmarks foretell enriched skills learned in the classroom (10) | ARITHMETIC | reheARsals wITh bencHMarks forETell enrIChed |
| 16D | Valerie’s plan: a destination concealing walkway by the beach (9) | ESPLANADE | valeriES PAN A DEstination |
| 18D | I’m accommodating new singer, a greedy character (8) | ISENGRIM | I(SINGER*)M |
| 19D | Least calm reporter meaning to hold conference at last (7) | EDGIEST | ED+GI(E)ST |
| 20D | Which organs filter blood taken from the ends of fingers? Group all the possible organ choices (7) | SPLEENS | fingerS grouP alL thE possiblE orgaN choiceS |
| 23D | Originally buys alliances without startup forms (6) | BUILDS | Buys+GUILDS-G |
| 25D | Reaps rotten piece of asparagus (5) | SPEAR | REAPS* |
| 27D | Decide on tool (4) | PICK | DD |
Here’s the list of Top Scorers (For the full list, please check the Leaderboard in the Hall of Fame)
Each of the following scored 163 points (Grid Score = 154 and Bonus points =9)
Al Sanders
Ashit Hegde
Bhalchandra Pasupathy
Harish T.K.
Himanshu Rajurkar
Lakshmi Prakash
Madhup Tewari
Mona Sogal
Mukundala Balasubramanyam
Narayan Mandyam
Narayanan Rangamani
Nilesh Parmar
Ramesh Swaminathan
Ramki Krishnan
Rathnakumar V
Samit Kallianpur
Sohil Bhagat
Sparsh Sinha
Supriya Mithal
Tejas Siddharth
Venkatesan P. and
Venkatraghavan S.
Congrats to the toppers and to all the solvers who participated.
Grid Rating: The puzzle got a terrific score of 8.54. It got 8 perfect 10s (23% of those who rated). The lowest score was 6.
Favorite Clues: The Top clues were
- Defeat within? – 9 votes
- Snarky reply from parent starts to scare apologetic youngster seeking more empathy (4, 2) – 9 votes
- Indulged in Marie Antoinette’s advice? (3, 4) – 8 votes
- Life insurance specialist to take measures before the second half of the second month (7) – 8 votes
Thanks Mathrix for awesome grid with a nicely disguised theme. I enjoyed solving it and the feedback from solvers has also been overwhelmingly positive.
Here’s what our solvers said..
| Name | Comments / Feedback on the puzzle |
|---|---|
| Venkatesan P. | Super. Nice clues. Theme words and Shakespearean quote neatly arranged |
| Rathnakumar V | Outstanding grid |
| Jyothish Balakrishnan | Perfectly designed with symmetrically placed NINAs. |
| Sandhya Paruchuri | Double the fun! |
| Sparsh Sinha | Wonderful |
| Tejas Siddharth | Very fun to solve. Nice Ninas. |
| Madhup Tewari | There are some beautiful clues in this relatively easy but extremely enjoyable puzzle. |
| Al Sanders | Lots of fun, nice theme |
| Steve Gunter | “Double Spaced” was a fairly easy puzzle for this American solver.But I believe there are seven examples of the title. Add Spleens to the list. 24 across: Defeat within? is a brilliant clue! |
| Sohil Bhagat | Great puzzle. Found this rather breezy but the quality of the cluing was top-notch. It took me quite a long while to identify the NINA words and when I did, my appreciation for the puzzle went up quite a few notches given the challenge in grid construction as well. Great job by the setter! |
| Madhusudan H | Excellent puzzle. In particular, letter selection clues were cleverly crafted. Enjoyed solving it. |
| Veera Raghavan | Good puzzle. Many ‘aha’ moments. The title actually helped to get a couple of solutions |
| Supriya Mithal | Enjoyable grid and concept ,with multiple themed words and the lengthy quote in the puzzle. I loved ‘Defeat Within’ |
| Narayana Swamy D | Very nice clues…Had to scratch my head to get the answers |
| Venkatraghavan S. | Super grid construction and theme |
| Harish T.K. | Great Puzzle, Great theme, I am always in awe of the ability to work in a theme like this into setting a puzzle, which must already be hard to begin with. |
| Samit Kallianpur | A nice themed grid! |
| Narayan Mandyam | NICE ONE |
| Narayanan Rangamani | very nice and easy |
| Ramki Krishnan | Very nice puzzle – enjoyed solving it, and more importantly, getting the bonus answers (something I always miss in Mathrix’ puzzles!) Many acrostic / letter-picking clues, but still woven into pretty smooth surfaces. |
| Prakash Arumugam | Enjoyable puzzle with excellent clues. |
| Ramesh Swaminathan | Great skill in grid fill Ninas and arranging clues making a quote. Well done. Smooth puzzle and relatively easy bonus. Good word play helped solve rare ones like 6D. Fun solve! |
| Mona Sogal | Good fun 🙂 |
| Koteswar Rao | GOOD TO SEE SO MANY THEME WORDS IN THE GRID. GOOD JOB! |
| Max Jackson | I assumed we were looking for double letters in the answers, but there are seven of those, so I might be wrong. Easier than some, but enjoyable. |