Rearranging The Deck Chairs On The Anti-Tic

Feb 5, 2012

On-Air Challenge: Each clue contains at least one seven-letter word. Rearrange the letters in that word to answer the clue.

Last Week's Challenge from listener Ed Pegg Jr.: Write the digits from 1 to 9 in a line. If you put times signs after the 2 and 4, a plus sign after the 5, and a minus sign after the 7, you have 12 x 34 x 5 + 67 - 89, which equals 2018. That's six years off from our current year 2012. This example uses four arithmetic symbols. The object is to use just three of the following arithmetic operations: addition, subtraction, multiplication and division, in a line from 1 to 9 to get 2012 exactly. The operations should be performed in order from left to right. There are no tricks to this puzzle. Can you do it?

Answer: 1234 - 5 - 6 + 789 = 2012

Winners: Alan Hirshfeld of Silver Spring, Md.

Next Week's Challenge: Name an animal. Add the letters "A" and "T," and rearrange the result to name another animal. These are both animals that might be found in a zoo, and the last letter of the first animal is the first letter of the last one.

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