Colin Murray and Rachel Riley host as contestants race against the clock to pit their wits against vowels, consonants and numbers. Susie Dent in Dictionary Corner.
In the first numbers round, I saw the contestant's solution and also had the following one based on noticing that the target was 50 off of 696. It was easy to get there using the 50 ([50 + 8] x [6 + 6]), so the challenge was finding a way around it. 10 + 6 = 16 16 x 6 = 96 96 - 9 = 87 87 x 8 = 696 696 + 50 = 746 And thinking in terms of multiples of 16 also gave me this: 10 + 6 = 16 16 x 9 = 144 144 - 50 = 94 94 x 8 = 752 752 - 6 = 746 In the second round, I saw Susie's excellent solution, but also had this one that I'm somewhat surprised neither of the contestants got: 75 - 8 = 67 67 x 8 = 536 536 + 5 = 541 And also this solution: 9 x 8 = 72 72 + 5 = 77 77 x 8 = 616 616 - 75 = 541 In the third round, there's a fairly easy solution: 25 x 4 = 100 100 - 7 - 1 = 92 92 x 10 = 920 920 - 4 = 916 And I factored the target, so in addition to getting Rachel's solution I also saw this: 25 x 10 = 250 4 - 1 = 3 7 x 3 = 21 250 - 21 = 229 229 x 4 = 916 In the final numbers round, another couple of solutions are: 25 x 9 = 225 225 + 2 = 227 227 x 2 = 454 454 + 100 = 554 25 - 9 = 16 16 / 2 = 8 100 - 8 = 92 92 x 6 = 552 552 + 2 = 554
