Dux of the Forum: Round 1 – ENGLISH
There are 6 questions in this round.
All answers need to be PM'ed to me by:
3 March 2009
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DOF English - Question 1
Let’s start off easy…. with some homophones. Complete the following scintillating conversational paragraphs using these words: they’re, their, there, too, two, to.

Peter and Jenny live at (1) King St.
(2) house is at the beginning of the street. One morning, Jenny said (3) Peter “Lucy and John from next door went (4) buy a new car yesterday!”
“Where is it?” said Peter.
“Over (5)” replied Jenny. “Do you like (6) new car?”
"It looks great!” said Peter, “Maybe we should buy a new car, (7)!”
“If we could afford (8)” replied Jenny, sadly. “New cars cost way (9) much for our budget. We will have (10) be happy with second-hand ones.”

“Lucy and her sister got (11) hair cut yesterday, (12)”
“I saw that.” Peter said, running his fingers through his own hair. “I think I need a Number (13) on mine.”
“I like (14) new hairstyles” said Jenny.
“Yes, it does suit the shape of (15) faces. (16) is another style that looks a little similar, (17).”
“ Cherie and Louise are not likely (18) have (19) hair styled like that though, as (20) very particular about how they look.
“(21) goes a customer for that hairdresser, then!”
“Yes! (22) not likely (23) see the (24) of them!"
“(25) bad.”

Scoring = 1 point per correctly placed word. (Max = 25)

Answer:

Peter and Jenny live at two King St. Their house is at the beginning of the street. One morning, Jenny said to Peter “Lucy and John from next door went to buy a new car yesterday!”
“Where is it?” said Peter.
“Over there.” replied Jenny. “Do you like their new car?”
“It looks great!” said Peter, “Maybe we should buy a new car, too!”
“If we could afford to.” replied Jenny, sadly. “New cars cost way too much for our budget. We will have to be happy with second-hand ones.”

“Lucy and her sister got their hair cut yesterday, too.”
“I saw that.” Peter said, running his fingers through his own hair. “I think I need a Number Two on mine.”
“I like their new hairstyles” said Jenny.
“Yes, it does suit the shape of their faces. There is another style that looks a little similar, too.”
“ Cherie and Louise are not likely to have their hair styled like that though, as they’re very particular about how they look.”
“There goes a customer for that hairdresser, then!”
“Yes! They’re not likely to see the two of them!
“Too bad.”

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DOF English - Question 2 – iSketchForum WordSearch

There are 38 forumites hidden in this WordSearch Puzzle. Can you find them all?





Notes:

• All non-alpha characters have been removed. – eg if sense/net was there, he would be SENSENET
• Forumites with numbers have not been included – ie db1986 is not included as db (sorry The Word Search Generator couldn't cope with numbers)
• Members whose names form part of another name are separate, eg if both Bellicimo and Bell are there, they will be in two different places, so finding Bellicimo does not count as finding Bell as well.

There are no forumites starting with the letters E, O, Q, R, U, W, X, Y or Z
There is 1 forumite starting with each of the letters A, G, H, I, K, L and V
There are 2 forumites starting with each of the letters F, J, M, P and T
There are 3 forumites starting with each the letter N
There are 4 forumites starting with each of the letters B, C and D
There are 6 forumites starting with the letter S

Edit:
When submitting the names, you can submit with or without the non-alpha characters.
The forumite beginning with A appears more than once. You only need to show one location to get the point.

Scoring = 2 points for each forumite found - ie 1 point for the name and 1 for locating it in the word search - (Max = 76)

Answer:



The forumites intended to be in this were:
1. AJ
2. BELL
3. BELLICIMO
4. BUFFERS
5. BUFFYC
6. CAPTSPARROW
7. CHARLOTTE
8. CHES
9. CHRISUK
10. DANFISH
11. DEADLOCK
12. DEADPAN
13. DEAN
14. FENDER
15. FOX
16. GRACIE
17. HONEYBABY
18. ICHI
19. JIGSAW
20. JOBE
21. KATIELEMON
22. LEVESQUE
23. MARAUDERS
24. MRSNERDINATOR
25. NAY
26. NOHINTS
27. NYNA
28. PETER
29. PLATINIUM
30. POOTSIE
31. SAFFRON
32. SENSENET
33. SHADOWS
34. SKETCHES
35. SPECTRE
36. STORM
37. TASHA
38. TEMPUSFUGIT
39. VIK

I did not require Number 29 (Platinium) as she changed her name after this went up. So did sense/net, but I think by then everyone had done this question, so he can remain (everyone got him anyway ^^) So I needed 38 forumite names and the image to show where they were located in the word-search.

Additional forumites found by various people (unintentionally there) are: b..., jar, Bis, Dot, and Pam. I allowed points for these if the entrant missed a forumite beginning with the same letter as they met the criteria (eg the person who entered 'b' as an answer missed BuffyC, but still gets the 2 points)

I did not allow points for Ayeup as she is not a forumite. Blame the random word-search generator for that one!


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DOF English - Question 3

a) Which word can you add to the words in each group to make other words or compound words?

Example:
stool, hold, note = FOOT (FOOTstool, FOOThold, FOOTnote)

1. lass, let, throat
2. mail, list, board
3. boy, lick, poke
4. go, there, seen
5. stop, wash, water
6. time, rock, post
7. back, short, watch
8. light, hot, check
9. back, ship, work
10. powder, fire, shot
11. hot, strong, arrow

b) What do the following words have in common?

i) subcontinental, , unproprietary, facetious, uncomplimentary, abstemious.
ii) cabbage, deface, baggage, face, bad
iii) mild, cimicid, mix, dim
iv) ingesting, murmur, antiperspirant, entertainment, underground
v) strength, scratch, stretch, clutch
vi) defenseless, disinhibiting, handcraftsman
vii) racecar, madam, eye, refer, pup
viii) short, polysyllabic, sesquipedalian

Scoring =
Part a) 1 point per correct word (please also provide the three new words made)
Part b) 2 points per correct answer
(Max = 27)

Answer 3a:

1. CUT = CUTlass, CUTlet, CUTthroat
2. BLACK = BLACKmail, BLACKlist, BLACKboard
3. COW = COWboy, COWlick, COWpoke
4. FORE = FOREgo, thereFORE, FOREseen
5. BACK = BACKstop, BACKwash, BACKwater
OVER = stopOVER, washOVER, OVERwater
6. BED = BEDtime, BEDrock, BEDpost
7. STOP = backSTOP, shortSTOP, STOPwatch
8. SPOT = SPOTlight, hotSPOT, SPOTcheck
UP = UPlight, hotUP, checkUP
9. SPACE = backSPACE, SPACEship, workSPACE
BOARD = backBOARD, shipBOARD, workBOARD
FIRE = backFIRE, FIREship, FIREwork
YARD = backYARD, shipYARD, YARDwork
10. GUN = GUNpowder, GUNfire, shotGUN
11. HEAD = hotHEAD, HEADstrong, arrowHEAD

Answer 3b:
Each of these was worth 2 points. I have tried to explain parital allocation of points here.

i) subcontinental, , unproprietary, facetious, uncomplimentary, abstemious.
Each word has one occurence of each of the five vowels, in either alphabetical or reverse alphabetical order. To get the full 2 points, you needed to mention all 5 vowels, and something to do with their order.

ii) cabbage, deface, baggage, face, bad
Each of these words can be made using the first 7 letters of the alphabet and can therefore be played on most musical instruments. To get the full 2 points you needed to mention the link to musical instruments

iii) mild, cimicid, mix, dim
Each of these words are made using Roman Numerals. To get the full 2 points you had to mention that link.

iv) ingesting, murmur, antiperspirant, entertainment, underground
Each of these words begin and end with the same three letters. To get the full 2 points you needed to mention the beginning and ending.

v) strength, scratch, stretch, clutch
Each of these words are fairly long monosyllabic words that contain only 1 vowel. Other commonalities found were: they all have a T in them, all end in H, all score between 12-14 points on a scrabble board, are commonly misspelt, used in programming PYTHON, contain a silent letter, all contain the th ch sound, and the last three letters of each word are consonants.
To get the full 2 points, you had to either give me the fact that they were monosyllabic AND had only 1 vowel, or one of these points plus something else. (eg that they had only 1 vowel and all ended in H). 1 point for mentioning only 1 of these things without something else.

vi) defenseless, disinhibiting, handcraftsman
Each word has only one repeating vowel in it. To get the full 2 points, you had to identify this. I was lenient with answers on this due to the way answers were worded.

vii) racecar, madam, eye, refer, pup
Each of these words is a palindrome. To get the full 2 points, you had to use the word palindrome.

viii) short, polysyllabic, sesquipedalian
Each of these words is autonomic/autological - ie they describe themselves. Short is a short word. Polysyllabic has many syllables. Sesquipedalian is a long word. The definitions of the words also are reflected in the number of syllables they have. eg short has a short amount of syllables.....and so on.
To get the full 2 points, you had to mention that they either described themselves, OR mentioned the link between their descriptions and the amount of syllables they had.
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DOF English - Question 4
For this question you need to write a poem.
The poem can take any format – for example (but not limited to) limerick, free verse, couplets, tercets, ballad stanza.
The subject of the poem should be either: iSketch OR iSketchForum.net
Can you please also give me a name for your poem - that is what will go in the poll, with the poem in the thread below.
Each entrant is limited to 2 poems, but there is no word limit per poem. (Don't go silly though, as other forumites might not bother reading something too long :P)

Scoring will be by multi-choice poll and points allocated based on your percentage of votes in the poll.
1st = 10 points
2nd = 9 points
3rd = 8 points
4th = 7 points and so on.
Ties will work as they do in Athletics – eg if two people come first they will each get 10 points, there will be no second place, the next highest score will be third and get 8 points. (Max = 10)

There will also be an Honourable Mention in the Awards thread for the winning poet/s


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DOF English - Question 5 –
Whilst people are working on their poetic masterpieces, I will put up the last two questions for this round - Question 5 has 2 parts.

a) What four letter word can you make the most words from by using the letters within it.

Example:
From the word DIET – you can make 13 words:
DIET, EDIT, TIDE, TIED, TIE, DIE, TED, DIT, TI, ID, IT, DI, I

b) How many English words with a minimum of 4 letters can you make from the letters in the word: ISKETCH?

For both parts
· You need to list all the words you can make.
· Only words found in www.dictionary.com are allowed (not reference)
· No acronyms or proper nouns are allowed. And definitely no evil etymons
· For part a), you cannot use the word(s) given in the example :P

Scoring =
Part a) 2 points per 4 letter word, plus 1 point for every other word, plus 1 bonus point to the entrant(s) who find(s) the most words. (Max = ???)

Part b) 3 points per 7 letter word, plus 2 points per 6 letter word, plus 1 point for every 4 or 5 letter word, plus 1 bonus point to the entrant(s) who find(s) the most word (Max = ???). Words of less than 4 letters do not gain any points for Part b

Answer 5a:
The word that gained the most points and the most words for this round was EAST:
4 letter words: ates, east, eats, etas, sate, seat, seta, teas
other words: a, ae, as, at, ate, e, eat, es, et, eta, s, sat, sea, set, t, ta, tae, tas, te, tea, ts
I did not accept est as it is an acronym.
This entry is worth 37 points + 1 bonus point for also being the entrant with the most words (29)


Answer 5b:
I must preface this answer by saying I had multiple headaches over marking this! LOL, it really was hard.

From the word ISKETCH, the following 7 letter words can be made:
CHEKIST
I disallowed:
ISKETCH as it is a proper noun, and has no entry in dictionary.com

From the word ISKETCH, the following 6 letter words can be made:
ETHICS, ITCHES, KITSCH, SETHIC, SHTICK, SKEICH, SKETCH
I disallowed:
KITHES – no entry in dictionary.com (eg chi shows chis as plural, but kithe does not show kithes as plural)
THICKS– no entry in dictionary.com
only one of SHTICK/SCHTIK/SHTIK as it is the same word – whichever gave the most points was given, any others disallowed
only one of SCHEIK/SHEIK was given as it is the same word – whichever gave the most points was given, any others disallowed

From the word ISKETCH, the following 5 letter words can be made:
CESTI, CHEST, CHITS, CITES, ECHIS, ETHIC, HEIST, HICKS, HIKES, KETCH, KITES, KITHE, SHEIK, S.HITE, SITHE, SKITE, STECH, STEIK, STICH, STICK, STIES, THICK, TICKS, TIKES
I disallowed:
CHEKI– no word found
CHETS– no word found
ECHTS– no word found
HECKS– no entry in dictionary.com
HETHS– no plural for heth in the dictionary.com
ICHES– not in dicitionary.com (in reference/thesaurus)
KEITH– Proper noun
KHETS– no entry in dictionary.com
KITCH– abbreviation for kitchen
KITHS– no word found
SHICE– no word found
SHTIK– if they had schtik or shtick – same word
SIKET– no word found
SITCH– no word found
SKICE– no word found
STIKE – if stich was used as well as it is the same word
TECHS– no entry in dictionary.com
TICES– no entry in dicitionary.com. tice does not show that tices is the plural

From the word ISKETCH, the following 4 letter words can be made:
CEST, CETI, CHIS, CHIT, CIST, CITE, ECHT, ETCH, ETIC, HECK, HEST, HICK, HIES, HIKE, HIST, HITS, ICES, ICHS, ITCH, KEST, KETS, KISH, KIST, KITE, KITH, KITS, SECK, SECT, SHET, S.HIT, SICE, SICH, SICK, SIKE, SIKH, SITE, SITH, SKIT, TECH, THIS, TICE, TICK, TICS, TIES, TIKE, TSHI
I disallowed:
CHET– short for Chester, a proper noun
CISE– no word found
CITS– no word found
ESTH– short for Esther – proper noun
ETHS– only eth is shown in dictionary.com without a plural
HETS– no word found
ICSH– no word found
IKES– no word found
KHET– no word found
KHIS– only showed khi as the 22nd letter, but did not mention plural is khis
KIST– was disallowed if you gave cist as same word, different spelling
KTCH– short for kitchen
SCET– acronym – spacecraft event time
SECH– (sec)ant + (h)yperbolic – acronym
SEIK– no word found
SEIT– no word found
SETH– proper noun
SHIK– no word found
S.HIT– only disallowed if they had S.HITE as well
TCHE– no word found
TCHI– no word found
TCSH– acronym – Unix C shell
TECK– no word found
THES– acronym



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DOF English - Question 6
This is the final question in the English round.

a) Identify the following famous novels:
1) Jo, Meg, Beth and Amy struggle to overcome major character flaws in this 1868 novel representing family relationships. “Little Women – Louisa May Alcott”
2) This 1988 novel was at the centre of violent protests and resulted in the author receiving death threats. “Satanic Verses – Salman Rushdie”
3) A world champion prizefighter tries to woo a wealthy aristocrat without revealing his illegal profession in this 1882 novel. “Cashel Byron’s Profession” – George Bernard Shaw
4) “Last night I dreamt I went to Manderley again.” “Rebecca” - Daphne Du Maurier
5) This novel begins with a white rabbit carrying a watch, lamenting being late and tells the story of a girl in a fantasy world populated by peculiar creatures. “Alice’s Adventrues in Wonderland “ - Lewis Carrol
6) This episodic quest, with the prose interspersed with songs and poetry, has a title derived from a word meaning “hole-dwellers”. “The Hobbit” J R R Tolkien
7) In this novel, the author explores the effect of the Civil War and its aftermath on the old order of the South through the experiences of a rebellious Southern belle. . “Gone with the Wind” – Margaret Mitchell
8) Narrated by a six year old child, this novel sees a reclusive neighbour come to the rescue of the children when a white man takes revenge on them because of their father’s representation of a ‘colored’ man against his daughter in Court. “To Kill a Mockingbird” – Harper Lee
9) Peter, Susan, Edmund and Lucy slip through a magical wardrobe in the professor’s house, discovered whilst they are playing Hide-and-Seek. “The Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe” – C S Lewis
10) “Call me Ishmael” “Moby Dick” – Herman Melville


b) Identify the following nursery rhymes. (Note, these origins are ones I found on the Internet, I make no claim to their veracity) :P You do not need to give me the nursery rhyme in its entirety – just a name to identify it.

1) In the Middle Ages, the King imposed a tax on wool, of which one third went to the local lord, one third to the church, and the other third to the farmer.
Baa Baa Black sheep, have you any wool?
Yes, Sir, yes, Sir - three bags full.
One for hte master, and one for the dame,
And one for the little boy who loves down the lane

2) A powerful cannon used during the English Civil War that was mounted on the top of St Marys at the Wall Church to defend the city against siege. It fell off the wall and could not be mended.
Humpty Dumpty sat on a wall
Humpty Dumpty had a great fall.
All the King's horses and all the King's men
couldn't put Humpty together again.

3) During the Great Plague, people placed little bundles of herbs in their pockets to ward off the Plague. The Plague caused a rosy rash, and sneezing which accompanied the fatal moment when sufferers would fall down dead.
Ring a ring of rosies, a pocket full of posies, Atishoo, Atishoo - we all fall down

4) Apparently, in England, a person who can jump over a lit candle without the flame blowing out is considered to be going to have good luck over the next year.
Jack be nimble, Jack be quick, Jack jump over the candlestick

5) It was ancient custom to throw a shoe after a bride when she left on her honeymoon as a blessing of fertility on the union.
There was an old woman who lived in a shoe
She had so many children, she didn't know what to do.
She gave them some broth, without any bread
Then whipped them all soundly and put them to bed


Scoring =
Part a) 2 points each – one for the name of the novel and one for the author.
Part b) 1 point for each correctly identified nursery rhyme.
(Max = 25)

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This is the end of the English Round. There are 6 questions. You need to PM the answers to all 6 questions (or to those parts you wish to enter) to me by:

3 March 2009
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If you are competing in the entire round, you need to submit/or have submitted the following:

1. Up to 25 words for Question 1
2. A picture of the Word Find showing where up to 38 forumites are hidden, as well as a list of the forumites names you have found.
3. Up to 11 words for Question 3a) – showing how each word joins with the given words (ie: FOOTstool, FOOThold, FOOTnote). Plus up to 8 descriptions for 3b) explaining what each set of words has in common
4. A minimum of 1 poem, or a maximum of 2 poems for Question 4
5. Two lists of words for Question 5.
6. The names of up to 10 novels and their authors, and up to 5 nursery rhymes for Question 6

Using your bonus points:

You should also tell me by the due datewhether or not you wish to use some or all of your bonus points for this round.

The total maximum score from the questions for this round is undeterminable due to Question 5. However, the most points I can get for Q5a is 23 and 5b is 58 so if you use this as a baseline, the maximum possible score overall (including the possible 35 bonus points) is at least 279.

Bonus points available this round are:
25 - these are the original 25 points you get when you answer your first question
10 - for submitting attempts to all 6 English questions before the due date/time. NB: If someone sends a revision to one of their answers, they will lose their bonus points.

Good Luck Everyone

TOTAL POSSIBLE POINTS - AS AT CLOSING DATE.
Question 1 - 25
Question 2 - 76
Question 3a - 11
Question 3b - 16
Question 4 - 20 (10 for entering + 10 for winning)
Question 5a - 38 (37 word points + 1 bonus for finding the most words)
Question 5b - 75 (74 word points + 1 bonus for finding the most words)
Question 6a - 20
Question 6b - 5
Scissors-Paper-Rock - 22 (min 10 for entering, and the winner went through 6 rounds before being eliminated)
Use of possible available bonus - 35

Maximum possible score using all available bonus points - 343

This will be converted to a percentage - your score/343*100 - and will be maintained to two decimal places....

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OooOooOooOoo...? 23 Jan, 2009?!?!? This is gonna be FUNNNNNNN! Can't waittt for the Maths Round... and I don't wanna see the Art Round...

Yep. The answers to all 6 questions for this round need to be in by 23 January 2009. You can send them in as soon as you have answered it, or wait until the due date. The next 5 questions will be up periodically over the next week or so, giving you plenty of time to work out the answers.

And remember, you get 25 Bonus Points when you enter your first answer - you can use these points at any time throughout the competition.
And yes, I will be quite disappointed if you don't enter AT LEAST the Maths round!!

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LOL... Me NOT enter the Maths Round? Is that even possible as long as I'm healthy and alive (or even when I'm dead )? Even if I were on the hospital bed (GOD FORBID! I HATE (and am dead scared of) HOSPITALS AND INJECTIONS AND DOCTORS AND OPERATIONS AND...), I'd probably ask someone (But WHO?) to send in my entry... lol

Oh, I thought 23 Jan is the last date for this QUESTION only... lolz... And I was wondering why...

LOL!! Cos your so excitable, you didn't read it properly. You just thought "oOOOoOoOOOoOOo ....a competition....and some of it involves MATHS......OoOoOoooOOOO"

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LOL... YEAH! How did you knowwww?

Anyway, here's wishing you a verrryyy happpyyyy, mathematically adventurous and a successsfullllll new year!

This reminds me of those English lessons at school :P

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Yeh
English is the first round I came up with, I got more creative the further along the comp I went.
But hopefully, Question 2 is less lesson-like

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How much can a koala bear?

@(*o*)@

Gosh I should employ a proofreader........you would be correct :P

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yay, the crossword was definitely lots of fun! only the part where i had to find the last 2 forumites names starting with S... -_- everything was circled, it was so messy, so it took me ages to get those final 2 names. hmm...

For the names of the forumites, you're not bothered about what form they come in.. uhh i.e. Hmm.. (using your example) if you'd put Sense/net in, would you want us to pm sensenet (As it would appear in the wordsearch), or sense/net or either?

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Urgh.... I have two left to find!! This is driving me insane - lol

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You saying you still had your sanity before this? Pfft. Yeah right.

I might enter this. Nice idea, Saffypoos :D

Oh wow, I love the wordsearch idea

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excuse me. one question please. why does jenny have to be the name?

oh also XD more serious question :P for the word search, how do we show that we found the names?

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Probably the best way is to copy the wordsearch picture, circle the names using an image editing program, and then submit it.

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No that's fine, you can give me their name with or without the non-alpha characters.

Quote:

Originally Posted by jenni939706 excuse me. one question please. why does jenny have to be the name?

eep. I don't understand this question ...there isn't a forum member called Jenny. Or did I call something else Jenny? I'm confused.
But to answer your second question - Deebs' idea is probably the best, you can just send me a link to your edited image.

And.....
One forumite's name appears 5 times. You only need to show one location to get the point.

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lol saff XD its just people call me jenny sometimes ;) i wanted to know why my name was in it XD dont worry bout it XD not a serious question :P

lol, no bonus points for getting the name 5 times? :D

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Hmm, well....that would have been one of the things I would have given bonus points for in the original scoring system ;) but I'm doing it differently now. Consider them pre-bonussed :P

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I like it so far, can't wait for Question 3 :)

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i dont get it. btw. are these questions coming up daily? how long will we have after the sixth question comes out? XD

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I was referring to not being the organiser of the comp, so I have no idea what's coming next :S :P

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It's actually easier for me if you send them along as you finish them, that way I don't have a heap of checking to do all at once.

I didn't want to place unnecessary time limitations at this time of year, or have people who are on holidays miss out on part of the round if they came back part way through to find some of it already closed.

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This looks fantastic! Thanks for organising it Saff!

About the wordsearch, can we edit it in Paint and then link it to you through Photobucket or something or is there another way?

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