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The central square is of the most interest. What we're looking for is two words that begin with the same letter whose last letters start words that end with the same letter. There are two cases: BOSTON/BILOXI (which go with NASHUA/ITHACA) or TOLEDO/TUCSON (Which go with ODESSA/NASHUA). NASHUA is common to these two: it must go on the bottom rather than the right because there is no word that starts with S. Of the two choices, only BOSTON/BILOXI works, since there is no word that begins with S to connect to TUCSON. With BOSTON/BILOXI, the only word that works there is TACOMA. |
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ATHENS and HELENA must go to the left and right of the central square. From here, there are a host of forced words that get you to the end. |
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The missing word is BANGOR. |
Notes: During the test, I spent 5-10 minutes on this problem, and did not solve it. I focused on the left square instead of the central one, and would have solved it if I hadn't put TACOMA in the space where TUCSON is and then walked away because I had already used ATHENS. I think the problem is that in my mind, the word is spelled TUSCON, since the "C" is silent in the pronunciation of the name. After the test, it took me six minutes, but I had already thought out most of the problem by then.