Stats: The puzzle page was loaded 390 times. 51 visitors had a go at it. 41 solvers completed the puzzle and the bonus forms. The remaining solved it partly. Only 23 solvers got the full score.
Parallel Lines<<< Click Here for the Puzzle Post
Here is the solution grid:
Bonus Questions:
Q1 to 4: Four instances of the title hidden in the completed grid
Ans: Synonyms for “line” appear in parallel pairs in the completed grid:
RANK and EDGE across in the top left corner
FILE and TACK down in the top right corner
SKIRT and TRADE down in the bottom left corner
ROPE and CORD across in the bottom right corner
Annotations
| Ref | Clue | Answer | Annotation |
| 1A | Gossip about North Kansas joker (9) | PRANKSTER | PRA(N+KS)TER |
| 6A | Stages revolutionary relief work (5) | PODIA | (AID+OP)< |
| 9A | Transaction records concealed Gershwin piece (7) | LEDGERS | conceaLED GERShwin |
| 10A | Make light of awkward cast-off (5, 2) | SCOFF AT | CAST-OFF* |
| 11A | Bow before an overthrown millionaire (5) | NABOB | (BOB+AN)< |
| 12A | Crusading electric vehicle? Heavenly! (9) | EVANGELIC | EV+ANGELIC |
| 13A | Exaggerate in old poem about ink (9) | OVERSTATE | O+VERS(TAT)E |
| 15A | Conrad III hides bones (5) | RADII | conRAD IIi |
| 16A | Finally, government propaganda enthusiasts seek virtuous jobs (5) | TASKS | governmenT propagandA enthusiastS seeK virtuouS |
| 18A | Plunging jacket covers heel (9) | CASCADING | CAS(CAD)ING |
| 21A | Historical event involving arena work (6, 3) | KOREAN WAR | (ARENA WORK)* |
| 23A | Initially, you aren’t buzzed by a form of methamphetamine (5) | YABBA | You Aren’t Buzzed By + A |
| 25A | More embarrassed about latest from troublesome Canadian city (3, 4) | RED DEER | REDDE(E)R |
| 26A | Forces hold up American train station’s opening (7) | PROPELS | PROP+EL+S |
| 27A | Designs with no end of shameful complaints (5) | STYES | STYLES–L |
| 28A | Lacked harmony in record with odder arrangement (9) | DISCORDED | DISC+ODDER* |
| 1D | Transmitter broken only after program’s beginning (5) | PYLON | Program+ONLY* |
| 2D | First of all, any unusual danger in Benghazi, Libya’s exterior is detectable (7) | AUDIBLE | Any Unusual Danger In Benghazi, Libya Exterior |
| 3D | Polish foods, like a bass stew (9) | KIELBASAS | (LIKE A BASS)* |
| 4D | Tile sets are broken (7) | TESSERA | (SETS ARE)* |
| 5D | Manipulate a sphere somehow (7) | RESHAPE | (A SPHERE)* |
| 6D | Incorrectly switching startup of Word for Power Point (5) | PRONG | WRONG–W+P |
| 7D | Desecrated unfinished film? Indeed! (7) | DEFILED | DE(FILm)ED |
| 8D | Aggressive at loose stitching (9) | ATTACKING | AT+TACKING |
| 13D | Avoids better surroundings? (9) | OUTSKIRTS | DD |
| 14D | Drink in polite atmosphere (3) | TEA | poliTE Atmosphere |
| 15D | Angry ogre today is prepared for departure (5, 2, 2) | READY TO GO | (OGRE TODAY)* |
| 17D | Strayed off to park in Carmarthenshire (7) | STRADEY | STRAYED* |
| 18D | Reportedly, scaredy-cat retreated (7) | COWERED | ~COWARD |
| 19D | Priests assembled for bands (7) | STRIPES | PRIESTS* |
| 20D | I require housing benefit regulations initially to develop from within (7) | INBREED | I N(Benefit Regulations)EED |
| 22D | Helps sailor set out (5) | ABETS | AB+SET* |
| 24D | Former Syrian president requests to remove king on poster (5) | ASSAD | ASKS–K+AD |
Here’s the list of Top Scorers (For the full list, please check the Leaderboard in the Hall of Fame)
Out of 51 solvers, only 41 completed fully and 23 got the full score. Each of the following scored 169 points (Grid Score – 151, Bonus – 8).
Al Sanders
Anantakrishnan N.
Arvind Kannabiran
Ashit Hegde
Deepak Gopinath (Col.)
Harish Kamath
Lakshmi Prakash
Mona Sogal
Narayanan R
Nick Loader
Nilesh Parmar
Prakash Arumugam
Ramki Krishnan
Rathnakumar V
Ratna Rao
Samit Kallianpur
Sandhya Paruchuri
Steve Gunter
Tejas Siddharth
Tulika Das
Veera Raghavan
Venkatesan P.
Venkatraghavan S
Congrats to the toppers and to all the solvers who participated.
Grid Rating: The puzzle got a good rating of 8.32. It got 7 perfect 10s (17% of those who rated). The lowest rating was 6.
Favorite Clues: The Top clues were
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- Plunging jacket covers heel (9) – 10 votes
- Incorrectly switching startup of Word for Power Point (5) – 9 votes
- Crusading electric vehicle? Heavenly! (9) – 9 votes
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Thanks Mathrix for another fun puzzle and the interesting end game. Had a lot of fun solving it. Here’s what our solvers said..
| Name | Comments / Feedback on the puzzle – Please provide specific com |
|---|---|
| Jyothish Balakrishnan | Treasure hunt! |
| Rathnakumar V | Nice |
| Jose A | Great fun (especially after a hectic few hours this made my day) |
| Mukundala Balasubramanyam | Interesting grid |
| Bhalchandra Pasupathy | Nicely put together |
| Al Sanders | Very clean puzzle, very enjoyable |
| Venkatraghavan S | Nice puzzle. And Mathrix’s themes and bonus stuff are always interesting |
| Sandhya Paruchuri | Good one! |
| Veera Raghavan | Breeze! |
| Steve Gunter | As a mathematician, the title “Parallel Lines” was intriguing to me 🙂 |
| Anantakrishnan N. | Excellent theme. Nice clues |
| Lakshmi Vaidyanathan | nice puzzle |
| Rengaswamy N. | Easy to solve |
| Arvind Kannabiran | much fun. perfect for a puzzle to solve after a layoff. cheers! |
| Samit Kallianpur | Nice grid and theme, and some nice clues! |
| Krittibas Dasgupta | Great clues overall, although couldn’t parse 13D and have a problem with 12A. |
| Nagendra Prasad R. | Nice Grid |
| Prakash Arumugam | Enjoyable puzzle. Although it took me a while, it was quite satisfying to find the parallel lines |
| Narayanan R | Super Grid |
| Narayana Swamy D | Interesting Grid |
| Arun Hiregange | Very gentle and enjoyable clues 🙂 Though I could not make head or tail of the 4 special questions I did have an enjoyable time trying to figure it out. Which is all we really needed from these puzzles. |
| Arvind Ramaswamy | Simple grid clues but found the theme too difficult to crack. |
| Harish Kamath | Decent grid overall |
| Koteswar Rao | good entertainer |
| Mona Sogal | Some new words- had fun solving the grid 🙂 |
| Ramki Krishnan | Nice and smooth clues. But (as it always happens with me for Mathrix puzzles) no idea about the themed words. Just guessed wildly! |
| Max Jackson | I’m not at all sure of my selections for parallel lines – maybe too lateral thinking. |
| Melissa McSeismal | You need to be more explicit with the instructions for the bonus form otherwise it’s like one of those tests at school where the students are required to read the teacher’s mind to determine what the teacher is actually looking for in the answers. |
| Nick Loader | I feel bad. Clue surfaces mostly great just a bit simple and easy. Too many anagrams I guess. |