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How to solve “Of the…” clues?

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  • How to solve “Of the…” clues?

    I have persistent trouble deriving all of the information from the “Of the…” unaligned pair clues, and the “How to Solve” tips don’t address it. Here is one example:
    Clue: "Of the presenter who spoke for 14 minutes and the student who got the D, one was Willie and the other spoke on Monroe.”

    Here are some of the hints that I requested:
    If Willie does not equal Kennedy, and 14 minutes and D can only be paired with either Willie or Monroe, then 14 minutes cannot be equal to Kennedy.
    If D does not equal 8 minutes, and Willie and Monroe can only be paired with either 14 minutes or D, then Willie cannot be equal to 8 minutes.
    If D does not equal 8 minutes, and Willie and Monroe can only be paired with either 14 minutes or D, then Monroe cannot be equal to 8 minutes.

    What tips are there to determine all of the information that can be mined from this clue?​

  • #2
    Those clues can be broken down into more straightforward clues like this:

    Original clue: "Of A and B, one was C and the other was D."

    This means all of the following (I usually put the first two on the grid during my first pass through the clue list looking for "low-hanging fruit", then go back and factor in the others later.)
    -A is not equal to B
    -C is not equal to D
    -A *must* be either C or D
    -B *must* be either C or D
    -C *must* be either A or B, and
    -D *must* be either A or B.

    When this clue has A & B (or C & D) as two entries in the same category (e.g. "Of Anna and Bob, one spoke for 14 minutes and the other got the D"), it's a good clue for crossing off a bunch of squares in one row at once, because it tells you that '14 minutes' MUST be either Anna or Bob, so you can cross off *all* the other names for 14 minutes, and the same goes for 'the D'.

    To speed up the process in my brain, when I'm filling in the grid I tend to phrase it to myself like this:

    Original clue: "Of the presenter who spoke for 14 minutes and the student who got the D, one was Willie and the other spoke on Monroe.”

    "Okay, so this means that 14 minutes must be either Willie or the Monroe-speaker, in the speakers category (AND 14 minutes must be either Monroe or Willie's topic, in the topics category)", etc.

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    • #3
      Thank you, Ellie1! That seems to be a helpful framework.

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