M Puzzle: Job Performance Review

by Bridget Copley

Note: check these answers against the actual answers after the test is updated, if necessary.

The full text of the questions is here. If you letter the six answers to each question A-F, the correct answers are:

CEEEFEEEFBCE
BEBEBEEFDEAC
ABBBDEEBBBBB

Using the shaded squares, this gives the pattern:

This is the obvious but incorrect way to do the test, and it gives the bigram ED.

The correct way to take the test is to do what the directions tell you and "fill in each square according to the answer letter." The answers don't have letters in front of them; rather, the correct answers have letters in them. So the first question's correct answer is the third one, "F. Scott Fitzgerald"; square 1 should therefore be filled not with a C but with an F.

The answers are therefore actually:

FCFCCECFFCCB
ACDABEBBDABB
ADDABBBBADBA

and the grid is:

The answer to this puzzle is SALMON.