Test your word power by philip j carter ken a russell

in a straight line, IIEIXIS Y find 20 words in the XiRIX S must contain at least If we presented you with the words MAR, AM and FAR and asked you to find the smallest word that contain

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TEST YOUR WORD POWER

Philip J Carter & Ken A Russell

Joint editors of the Mensa UK puzzle journal

+

WARD LOCK

A WARD LOCK BOOK

First published in the UK 1994

Copyright © Philip J Carter and Ken A Russell

All rights reserved No part of this publication may be reproduced in any material form (including photocopying or storing it in any medium

by electronic means and whether or not transiently or incidentally to some other use of this publication ) without the written permission of the copyright owner, except in accordance with the provisions of the Copyright, Designs and Patents Act 1988 or under the terms of a licence issued by the Copyright Licensing Agency, 90 Tottenham Court Road, London W1P 9HE Applications for the copyright owner’s written

permission to reproduce any part of this publication should be addressed

to the publisher

Distributed in the United States

by Sterling Publishing Co., Inc

387 Park Avenue South, New York, NY 10016-8810

Distributed in Australia

by Capricom Link (Australia) Pty Ltd

2/13 Carrington Road, Castle Hill NSW 2154

A British Library Cataloguing in Publication Data block for this book may be obtained from the British Library

ISBN 0 7063 7228 X

Design and typesetting Ben Cracknell

Printed and bound in Great Britain by Cox & Wyman Ltd,

Reading, Berks

CONTENTS

Acknowledgements 4

Introduction 5 Puzzles 7

Answers 103

ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS

We are indebted to our wives, both named Barbara, for their continued enthusiastic support for all our

projects Our special thanks go to Lynn Moore for

typing the manuscript

INTRODUCTION

Words are like leaves; and where they most abound,

much fruit of sense beneath is rarely found

Alexander Pope

People delight in playing with words — pulling words

apart, reconstructing them in different guises,

arranging them in clever patterns and finding hidden meanings within them |

We are both word game addicts, whether it be

creating novel crossword grids, decoding and devising ingenious cryptic crossword clues or wrestling with chronograms, word squares, lipograms, palindromes,

rebuses, heteronyms and homonyms

It is often said that to have a mastery of words is to

have the ability to produce order out of chaos and that

command of vocabulary is a true measure of

intelligence As such, vocabulary tests are widely used

in intelligence testing In this book we test your word power in a wide selection of different types of word

puzzles, many of which are our own invention We

have created the chaos and have thrown out the

challenge for you to sort out the chaos and restore

order

The puzzles in this book vary in difficulty, and to enable you to monitor your performance throughout

we have allocated the following star rating system:

* Standard

** More challenging

*** Difficult

Each puzzle has been cross-referenced with two

numbers — a question number (Q) and an answer

number (A) so that when you check the answer to a puzzle there is no risk of seeing the answer to the next puzzle before you have had a chance to solve it

We have, first and foremost, set out to entertain and intrigue you, and we hope that you will spend many enjoyable hours working on the puzzles we have

created for you

Word Search

Find 18 words to do with vehicles Words run

backward, forward, vertically, horizontally and

D|U)|HJO|JSJIR/JEIGIOjJO

LỊIRJINIRjOITIOIGIMMM LIT/|EJU|UJO|JEIY|O|O VJI|C|JBJO|Y|C|RICIT B|H|E|AIRjS|IE|O|O|U

| Synonyms |

In each of the following a number of synonyms of the keyword are shown Take one letter from each of the synonyms to find a further synonym of the keyword The letters appear in the correct order

1 Keyword: granule

Synonyms: scrap, fragment, grain, atom, iota,

crumb, molecule, speck

Synonyms: appropriate, clever, dextrous,

fit, qualified, sufficient, practised, able, endowed, suitable

Keyword: trick

Synonyms: imposture, feint, fraud, artifice, deceit, trap, dodge, manoeuvre, gimmick

Poinephobia - _ drinks

Kenophobia -— punishment Potophobia - _ glass

Doraphobia - animals Chrometophobia - _ fur

Hormephobia —- pain Nelophobia -— mirrors Katalegophobia -— money

10

| | No Repeat Letters |

Moving from one square to

another in any direction,

spell out the longest word

that you can You can go

into each square only once

of abscond minus AB Can you find the original

in a straight line, IIEIXIS Y

find 20 words in the XiRIX S

must contain at least

If we presented you with the words MAR, AM and

FAR and asked you to find the smallest word that

contained all the letters from which these words could

be produced, we would expect you to come up with the word FARM Here is a further list of words:

STUN, COUNT, STAIR, SLOT

What is the shortest word from which all these four

words can be produced?

12

| Animal Anagrams |

Solve the four anagrams to find the names of kinds of

animals Then transfer the arrowed letters and solve

the fifth anagram, which is also the name of a kind of

| Anagram Theme |

Arrange the 14 words in pairs so that each pair is an anagram of another word or name The seven words produced have a linking theme For example, if the words TRY and CREASE appeared in the list, they could be paired to form the word SECRETARY and the theme could be professions

Find the starting point A

and spell out this saying

You can move in any W

direction, but use each

letter once only

All the following are jobs or professions When you

have identified them, re-arrange the initial letters to

form an eleventh job or profession

| Knight Beau Jacques’ Theorem |

Find the starting point, then, using the knight’s move

in chess, work out the message

| Word Power |

The answers are all nine-letter words and will be

found in the grid You will find one letter on each line

in order, and you may use each letter once only All the words start with the letter P

Clues

1 Devoid of expression 6 Type of nut

2 Stamp collecting 7 Trickle

3 Wages container 8 Type of drill

| Missing Letters |

Fill in the missing letters to give the names of 10

kinds of small creature

Find a 13-letter word by travelling along the lines

You must not cross a letter twice

right The letters in the brackets reading in pairs

downwards will spell out a 12-letter word

Use all 24 letters in the sentence below to spell out the

names of three birds Use each letter once only

SHAKERS HOVER IN FLYING RACE

20

Move from honeycomb cell to honeycomb cell, in any direction, to spell out the names of 12 birds You may move horizontally, vertically or diagonally, and you

may use letters more than once in the same word

Find a word and its container for each of the clues

below For example, Meat in a river = T (ham) es

1 Monkey in a church 6 Element in a bell

2 Bird in the inside 7, Curve in a manuscript

3 Animal in an element 8 Vegetable in a weapon 4.Rodent in appreciation 9 Drink in a state

5 Island in an 10 Composer’s name in

21

Many familiar words have unfamiliar meanings — for example, the word clock, as well as meaning a

timepiece, is also a name for a type of beetle and an

ornamental pattern on the side of the leg of a sock or stocking Below is a list of familiar words and

opposite a list of their not so familiar meanings, but in the wrong order Can you match them up correctly?

Dean — Asmall fish with silvery scales

Kick — Acomposition of plaster of Paris

Gnome - A deep, narrow valley

Cockle -— To dress up in a showy fashion

Pace — Farewell

Argentine — To cleanse and thicken (as cloth)

Crank — A shrubby evergreen plant

Fetch — An aperture in a wall for shooting

or looking through Staff — With the permission of

Tuna — The pushed-in base of a glass bottle

Loop — A wraith or double |

Prank — A heating stove with a kind of radiator Rue — A prickly pear (plant or fruit)

Vale — Briskly or vigorously

23

| Pyramid |

Spell out the 10-letter word by

going into the.pyramid one room

at a time Go into each room

once only, but you may go

into the passage as many

times as you wish

zEvTyvbylay

Of the 17 words listed here, 16 can be paired up to

form eight double words Which word is left over?

24

but can use each letter | A|L|H a RỊE|IlI

EID|IO|IT|E|EIT DỊL|E|Z|DIE|Y

| Liam's Mail and Tessa's Asset |

Each clue leads to a pair of words that form a

palindrome — for example, spacious heath = roomy

moor and she was unwell = Delia ailed

1 Circumvent him 7 He transgressed

2 Burst forth flawless 8 Irish anger

3 Wicked fruit 9 Tender god

4 Highest billing 10 Festivity ambush

5 Cared for mesh 11 A week’s closing of

6 Inferior sag 12 Enticed ahead

25

The earliest documented palindrome in the English language — ‘lewd did I live, & evil I did dwel’ — was written by John Taylor in 1614 Since then

palindromes have become a challenging and amusing form of word play and many examples have become

quite well known — for example, ‘sex at noon taxes’,

‘able was I ere I saw elba’ and ‘a man, a plan, a canal: panama’, which honours George W Goethals, the

engineer who devised the Panama Canal

Can you complete the palindromes below with the

help of the clues provided? Some letters are shown — forexample,C .TT C becomes ‘can I

| Network = |

Start anywhere and travel along the connecting lines

in a continuous path to adjacent circles to spell out a 14-letter word You may visit each circle only once

Complete the following sentence by filling in the four words The words are anagrams of each other

Move from triangle to triangle to spell out the names of

15 animals You may use each letter more than once

OS

Place the 20 words listed below in the crossword

| Connections |

Each pair of words, by meaning or association, leads

to another word Find the missing words from 18 to

30 The number of dots indicates the number of letters

in the missing words

—— Three Bits

Use each of the 24 bits

once only to form

eight words Each of

the eight words

uses one bit from :

each of the inner,

middle and outer

Re-arrange the following letters to find this —

quotation by William Cowper (3, 4, 3, 7, 3, 3, 4, 3, 4)

AD, AD, CO, DM, ET, ET, GO, HE, HE,

MA, ND, NM, TO, TR, UN, WN, YA

su (4đ, c l J J

33

| Word Track — American Presidents |

By starting somewhere in the letter-maze and by

moving one letter at a time to the left or right or up or

down, it is possible to spell out the names of 20

Presidents of the United States It does not matter

which name you identify first; as long as you make the correct turnings, the names will eventually lead you through all 144 letters

Solve the clues and you will find that every answer

has ANT somewhere in it

2 Loose drawers ANT

3 A small beam ANT

The Enigmasig Wheel was introduced in 1986 in Take

the IQ Challenge The wheel, which combines

anagrams and synonym-type crossword clues, is

named after the Mensa special interest group (Sig),

which is dedicated to the setting and solving of

puzzles The scrambled letters in the section to the

right of each column are an anagram of a word that will provide a clue to the word that will fit into the

column Each of these words ends in the letter E

Start at the centre square and, working from square to square horizontally, vertically and diagonally, spell out seven synonyms of the word MAGNIFICENT You

should use each

and you should

finish at the top UJ|N|U|S|NG|R GÌ

Find the rule that produces the word in brackets and

then find the word that should go in the second set of

| Murphy’s Recommendation | |

Working either clockwise or anticlockwise and to a

definite pattern, find the letters that will produce a trite sentence beginning with W The first letter, W, 1s not

39

| Rhyming Pairs |

The answers to each of the following clues are a pair

of rhyming words — for example, Unhappy young man

case, a nine- P S NIRIE letter word

Each word

1 Alan said: ‘I am going as Caesar unless Charlie

goes as King Kong or Fred goes as Ghandi.’

2 Bill said: ‘If Dick is going as either Caesar or

Ghandi, then I am going as the Devil.’

3 Charlie said: ‘I am going as Napoleon unless

Edward goes as the Devil, in which case I will go as

the Devil, too.’

4 Dick said: ‘I am going as Ghandi unless Charlie is Caesar.’

5 Edward said: ‘If Dick is Caesar then Fred must be Ghandi, but otherwise Fred is the Devil.’

6 Fred said: ‘Edward must be King Kong unless Bill

| Word Circles |

Place the letters in the correct boxes in each quadrant

to obtain two eight-letter words, one reading

clockwise and the other anticlockwise The two words

Gods and Goddesses

These Greek and Roman gods and goddesses have

been mixed up Can you put them right?

fertility

love war harvest sun

childbirth

messenger

Roman god

Orcus Mars Venus - Bacchus Ops

Diana

Juno Neptune Apollo Mercury

45

Each grid contains the

letters of eight eight-

letter words Each word

in Grid 1 has a synonym

in Grid 2, and the letters

of each of the eight pairs

of synonyms are in

exactly the same position

in each grid All letters

are in the correct order

and each letter is used

once only Clues to each

pair of synonyms are

given, in no particular

order — for example, the

answers to the clue

Remnant are the words

Fragment in Grid 1 and

Particle in Grid 2

Grid 1

ty He

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