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Altered States intructions

Altered States
by Don Vance & Sue Bernstein

All answers are 2-letter U. S. state abbreviations. In some cases, more than one state is called for in the answer.

The contest will run until midnight, December 20th. All winners will receive a beautiful, signed, framable certificate. If there is no winner, the contestant(s) with the most correct answers will receive the certificate.

Please submit your answers by email to dlxv -at- aol.com or to subee -at- flash.net with Altered States in the subject line. Please limit your entries to no more than three per week.

Have fun.
Don and Sue

Question 1

Traveling west to east through the Panama Canal, the abbreviation of the closest Continental US state navigable from the body of water first encountered when exiting the canal.

Answer: CA If you examine a close-up map of the Panama Canal, you can see that travelling through it in an easterly direction, you actually enter from the Caribbean Sea side and exit into the Pacific Ocean. The closest navigable state is California.

Question 2

Abbreviation of the state where the note in FIGURE A was first issued to the general public.

Answer: IL
If you note the “G” at the beginning of the serial number, you will find that this note was issued from the Federal Reserve Bank in Chicago, Illinois.

Question 3

State abbreviation arrived at by the following instructions:

1. Find the two English language adjectives that contain all the vowels (a,e,i,o,u) once each in successive order (though they may be separated by consonants).
2. Using the sequence (A=1, B=2, C=3, etc.) put the words into separate numerical strings.
3. Add the strings together.
4. From the result, add the two lowest prime factors together.
5. Translate back to alphabetical.

Answer: DE
The two words we were looking for are facetious and abstemious. Facetious = 6-1-3-5-20-9-15-21-19. Abstemious = 1-2-19-20-5-13-9-15-21-19. Added together = 1225340348304238; the lowest two primes are 2, 43. Added together = 45, 4=D, 5=E, so Delaware.

Question 4

State abbreviation that is the Periodic Table symbol for a metal that is meltable at room temperature.

Answer: GA
There are several elements that are liquid at room temperature, but only one is also a state abbreviation, Gallium (Georgia).

Question 5

State abbreviations that appear as consecutive letters in the line preceding the line that became the title of an Oscar-winning movie, from a children’s ditty sometimes referred to as William Trimmytoes.

Answer: FL & NE
The variation of the children’s ditty, William Trimmytoes that I learned as a child went like this: William Trimmytoes, he’s a good man. Catches hens, puts ‘em in pens Liar, briar, limberlock Three geese in a flock One flew east One flew west One flew over the cuckoo’s nest Go home, you dirty dishrag, you jack From ONE FLEW WEST, we extract Nebraska and Florida.

Question 6

Moving one space at a time in any direction in FIGURE B (vertical, horizontal, or diagonal) without standing on a letter or returning to it, delete the hidden quotation from a book by a noted author, humorist, mathematician and logician. The remaining letters form the abbreviation of a state.

Answer: ID
From Lewis Carroll’s Jabberwocky, the line is, “O frabjous day! Callooh! Callay!” Left over is ID, Idaho.

Question 7

State abbreviation suggested by referring to a map of a different state and eliminating the county with the same name as the surname of a Billy DeBeck creation and eliminating all counties south, east and southeast of that county. (Must have at least 10 miles of common border.) Eliminate the county with the same name as the first recipient of “The Order of Canada” (as a group, rather than an individual) and all counties west, east, south, southeast and southwest of that county. Eliminate all counties that have any of  the letters in the middle name of a man nicknamed "Old Brains" as their third letter, except any counties that begin with a 'shh' sound.

Answer: HI
After deducing that the starting state is Kansas and eliminating all of the counties, per the instructions, you should be left with these 10 counties; Cheyenne, Sherman, Wallace, Thomas, Decatur, Sheridan, Gove, Phillips, Rooks, Ellis. Snuffy Smith is the Billy DeBeck creation. “Old Brains” was the nickname for Civil War general Henry Wager Halleck. Shade all these counties in and you get a big H and a big I for Hawaii.

Question 8

Abbreviation for the home state of the team represented by the player in FIGURE C.

Answer: NJ
Close examination of the player’s helmet reveals that his school begins with either a ‘B’ or an ‘R’. Team colors should eventually narrow it down to Rutgers in New Jersey.

Question 9

State abbreviation that is also the initials of an unwelcome Spartan visitor.

Answer: VT
The setting for the Academy Award winning movie, “In the Heat of the Night” (Sidney Poitier, Rod Steiger) was Sparta, Mississippi. There was a sequel called, “They Call Me Mr. Tibbs”. Both movies featured a lead character named Virgil Tibbs (Vermont).

Question 10

State abbreviation of the time of the painting shown in FIGURE D, if catalogued by Terence Afer.

Answer: MD
This painting, “Mystic Nativity” was painted in 1500 by Sandro Botticelli. If it was catalogued by Terence Afer, a playwright from 190 BC to 159 BC, he would have written the year in Roman numerals as MD, which is Maryland.

Question 11

Abbreviation of a state depicted in a 1940’s film, one of whose characters is a prize winning animal with the same name as the title of a famous portrait of the young son of a local merchant of Bath (c. 1770).

Answer: IA
The movie was “State Fair”; the pig was named Blue Boy, after Gainsborough’s famous painting and the state is Iowa.

Question 12

Abbreviation of a state in the title of a song composed by the entertainer whose name is an anagram of STAR MADE MEMORY.

Answer: WY
Morey Amsterdam wrote the song, “Why, Oh Why, Did I Ever Leave Wyoming”.

Question 13

Three state abbreviations surrounded by a fourth comprise the name of a European city, whose shoreline is historically connected to a state and a city in the US.

Answer: OR, MA, ND & NY
Utah Beach and Omaha Beach were code names for World War II D-Day invasion sites for Allied landings in Normandy, France. So, Oregon, Massachusetts, North Dakota and New York.

Question 14

If the three kings of the science fiction genre in FIGURE E were alive, their combined ages at 9/11/2004 would form the area code for this state’s abbreviation.

Answer: TN
Aldous Huxley 7-26-1884, H.G. Wells 9-21-1866 Jules Verne 2-8-1828. Their respective ages would have been 110, 176, 137, for a total of 423, which is an Area Code in Tennessee.

Question 15

State abbreviation that appears on a standard Monopoly board that corresponds to the property occupied by Molten Man on a Spiderman Special Edition Monopoly board.

Answer: CT
Molten Man appears on the Spiderman Edition Monopoly game where Connecticut Avenue is on a standard board.

Question 16

State abbreviations that appear as distinct words in the lyrics of a song from an Academy Award winning musical for which the producer/director had earlier won the same two Academy Awards for a different musical.

Answer: MI, LA, OH, ME & IN
These are all two-letter words that appear in the lyrics of a song from “The Sound of Music”, directed by Robert Wise, who earlier directed “West Side Story”. The states are Michigan, Louisiana, Ohio, Maine, Indiana.

Question 17

Starting from (A), move the number of clockwise spaces indicated by the blanks. Starting from (Z), move the number of counterclockwise spaces indicated by the blanks. The final letters landed on will spell out a state abbreviation, using the first letter from the clockwise moves and the second letter from the counterclockwise moves.

		A	Y	U	W	F	G	X	D
	O									E
	L									K
	S									C
	J									N
		V	M	T	I	H	P	R	Z

CLOCKWISE
___ S of the C
___ S on a SS
___ P in the SS
___ L in a S

COUNTERCLOCKWISE
___ L M from S
___ A in the B of R
___ P of C in the H B
___ in a B D

Answer: MN
Clockwise: 11 States of the Confederacy takes us to N, 8 Sides on a Stop Sign takes us to V, 9 Planets in the Solar System takes us to F, and 14 Lines in a Sonnet gives us our first letter, M. Counterclockwise: 3 Little Maids from School takes us to K, 10 Amendments in the Bill of Rights takes us to O, 23 Chromosomes in the Human Body takes us to A, and 13 in a Baker’s Dozen gives us our second letter, N and we wind up with Minnesota.

Question 18

State abbreviation that appears as the first and last letters on the license plate of a red Corvette driven by a noted actress in a movie that was directed by a famous personality who had earlier directed a movie with those same letters in the title of the movie.

Answer: TX
The white T-Bird (not the red Corvette {dumb Don}), in the movie “American Graffiti” was driven by Suzanne Somers. The license plate number THX138 was taken from one of George Lucas’ earlier movies, “THX1138”. That’s how we get Texas.

Question 19

Abbreviation of a state that has any point due east of any part of the state in the Continental US with the northernmost point, and has any point due north of the state in the Continental US with the southernmost point, and is due south of any part of at least three other states.

Answer: WI
Washington has the northernmost point in the Continental US and the states due east are Montana, North Dakota, Idaho, South Dakota, Minnesota, Wisconsin, Michigan, New York, Vermont, New Hampshire and Maine. Florida has the southernmost point and the juxtaposition of these two states limits us to either Wisconsin or Michigan. Michigan doesn’t have three states north of any part of it and parts of Michigan (Upper Peninsula), Minnesota (above Lake Superior) and Iowa (just south of LaCrosse) are all north of parts of Wisconsin. It turns out that the Red River Indian Reservation in Minnesota is actually further north than any part of Washington, so that makes the question easier or harder but Wisconsin is still the correct conclusion.

Question 20

Abbreviation suggested by completing the following instructions:

1. Draw a circle with a radius of 2 ½ units.


2. Let Point A = a point on the circle due east of the center point.


3. Draw 2 || lines extending 6 units from the eastern arc, 1 unit apart and equidistant from Point A.


4. Draw 2 || lines extending 4 units from the eastern arc, 3 units apart and equidistant from Point A.


5. Repeat steps c and d, starting from the northern, southern and western arcs.

Answer: NM
After completing the drawing you should end up with a circle with two long rays and two short rays emanating from 4 different directions. This is the Sun symbol of the Zia tribe of American Indians and is found on the state flag of New Mexico.

Question 21

State abbreviation for the state that has a unique connection to Canada, Denmark, Egypt, Korea, Lebanon, Mexico and Wales, as well as to Berlin, Frankfort, Halifax, London, Manila, Moscow, Paris and Warsaw, and also to Boston, Columbus, Concord, Montgomery, Montpelier, Olympia,
Providence, Salem, Trenton.

Answer: KY
These exotic places are all names of cities and towns in the state of Kentucky. (Denmark is a very small hamlet of less than 100 population (I have been there).

Question 22

State abbreviation represented in FIGURE F.

Answer: VA
In the Braille alphabet, these are the symbols for V and A, representing Virginia.

Question 23

With the final letter changed to a letter that corresponds to another that is next on the telephone dial, the state abbreviations that appear, in order, in the name of the Pokemon figure that weighs 106 pounds.

Answer: AL, AK, AZ & AR
The Pokemon guy is named Alakazam, and we just need to change the final M to an R to find Alabama, Alaska, Arizona and Arkansas.

Question 24

State abbreviation for one state is the same as the 2-letter ISO country code of a country whose largest city is Victoria. One thousand miles due northwest of that country is a 2-letter ISO country code of a country that is an abbreviation for another state. Name both states.

Answer: SC & SD
Victoria is the largest city in the Seychelles, with an ISO Code: SC. Two (not one) thousand miles to the northwest is Sudan with ISO Code: SD, so we get South Carolina and South Dakota.

Question 25

State abbreviation found by following these seven instructions, but NOT in the order given:
Begin with the phrase: THE QUICK BROWN FOX JUMPS OVER THE LAZY DOG.

1. Remove every third letter.
2. Remove all letters that rhyme with “free”, “play” or “sky”.
3. Divide every odd letter in half vertically and eliminate all symbols that are not capital letters.
4. Remove all vowels that are found in the sixth word in this sentence.
5. Remove an equal number of letters from each end of the string.
6. Exchange the last two letters in the string.
7. Reverse the order of the string.

Answer: NV
The possible permutations of this question are not as vexing as they first seem, because there are actually several sequences which produce the same result. This order will work: 2, 4, 1, 6, 3, 7, 5. After #2, HQUROWNFOXUMSORHLO. After #4, (f o u n d) HQRWNFSMSRHL. After #1, HQWNXMRH. After #6, HQWNXMHR. After #3, QVVNMR. After #7, RMNVVQ. And after #5, NV, for Nevada.

Question 26

State abbreviation arrived at by completing the grid in FIGURE G.

Answer: OK
All shapes that look like aliens or asterisks don’t come out the same all the time, but it doesn’t matter because they are designed to be red herrings. If the page is turned upside down, the white area that now borders the top of the grid is the northern boundary of the outline of the state of Oklahoma.

Question 27

Beginning at Cornwall, New York, go due west until you reach a city with a population of at least 375,000.
If you are in a state capitol, go south 400 miles. If not, go north 400 miles.

If you are in the Continental US, go east to the closest meridian that is evenly divisible by 10; if not go west to the closest meridian that is evenly divisible by 10 (no fractions).

Go due south until you reach a body of water larger than Lake Ontario. Continue south until you reach a parallel that is easily divisible by 5.

If you are on land, go east 10°; if you are on water, go west 10°.
Make a 90° turn and cross four borders.

What is the abbreviation for the state you are in?

Answer: KS
Minneapolis/St. Paul is the big city you will reach after leaving Cornwall. Since it is a capital, we go south 400 miles and since we are in the Continental US, we go east to 90 degrees. Then we head south into the Gulf of Mexico to latitude 25 degrees. We are now in water so we go west 10 degrees to longitude 100 degrees. If we turn south, we will not end up in the US so we go north. We cross the borders of Nuevo Leon/Coahuila, Coahuila/Texas, Texas/Oklahoma and Oklahoma/Kansas.

Question 28

Using the grid in FIGURE H, find the state abbreviation that is represented by drawing a straight line from the middle of each square to the middle of the next square as determined by the order of admission to the Union of the following states:

1. State referred to in the clue with reference to Suzanne Sommers.
2. State of the birthplace of the figure partially shown in FIGURE A.
3. State whose motto was taken from an essay by Cicero.
4. State of the birthplace of a personality that is anagrammed in a clue.
5. State of the birthplace of the actor who played Kurt in a movie clue.
6. State of the birthplace of a Civil War general referred to in a clue.
7. State with more shoreline than Hawaii, California and Florida combined.

Answer: WV
a. Clue 18 TX 28th, b. Clue 2 NJ 3rd, c. NC 12th, d. Clue 12 IL 21st, e. Clue 16 (Duane Chase) CA 31st, f. Clue 7 NY 11th, g. MN 32nd . If you trace these lines you will see West Virginia appear.

Question 29

State abbreviations for any states with FIPS code numbers that are 2 digit prime numbers, but are not prime factors of 17,734,583,045,426.

Answer: NC
Of the 2-digit primes possible, only 11, 37 and 43 are not factors of the number. FIPS code number 43 hasn’t been assigned yet and number 11 is for Washington, D.C., not a state, so the answer is North Carolina.

Question 30

Alma, Dewy, Moms, Neil and Winy each came to the mall today to buy a CD to help solve a puzzle in a contest. Their last names (in no special order) are Orca, Paut, Rime, Vain and Waco. The CDs purchased were a Framer’s Almanac, a Hambone Atlas, a Wikiponia Encyclopedia, a Scotty Stamp Catalogue and a Rigor’s Thesaurus. The prices of the CDs were $15, $20, $26, $37, and $42. Find the full name of the person who paid $26 to find the four state abbreviations contained therein (no letter shuffling, please).

1. Vain and Dewy don’t like the Wikiponia Encyclopedia so they’re both waiting for the next version of the Brittainia CD.
2. Alma’s purchase cost less than the Framer’s Almanac.
3. Moms and Orca are first cousins.
4. Paut’s CD cost less than the Hambone Atlas.
5. The person who bought the almanac (who wasn’t Waco) and Neil often shop together.
6. Vain (who isn’t Moms) didn’t buy the Hambone Atlas (which didn’t cost $26).
7. Neither Neil (who isn’t Orca) nor Winy bought the Scotty Stamp Catalog.
8. The encyclopedia cost more than Rime’s and Winy’s purchases combined.
9. Waco’s CD (which wasn‘t the Rigor Thesaurus) cost less than Neil’s purchase.

Answer: MO, MS, WA & CO
See the link below for more details.

From clue 8, the encyclopedia cost $37 or $42. If it cost $42, it couldn’t have been purchased by Vain (clue 1), Paut (clue 4), Rime (clue 8), or Waco (clue 9), so it would have been Orca. If that were so, then it couldn’t have been Dewy’s (clue 1), Alma’s (clue 2), Moms’ (clue 3), Neil’s (clue 7), or Winy’s (clue 8). Therefore, the encyclopedia could not have cost $42; it must have cost $37. The $42 CD wasn’t purchased by Paut (clue 4), Rime (clue 8) or Waco (clue 9), so it was Orca or Vain. If it were Vain, the atlas wouldn’t have cost $15 (clue 4) or $26 or 42$ (clue 6); it would have cost $20. By clue 4, the $15 item would have been purchased by Paut. The $20 item would have been purchased by Rime and Winy would have spent $15 (clue 8). Since the $42 item wouldn’t have been Dewy’s (clue 1), Alma’s (clue 2), or Moms’ (clue 6), it would have been Neil’s (clue 1). The almanac wouldn’t have been $15 (clue 2) or $42 (clue 5), so it would have been $26. The stamp catalog, then, would have been Neil’s or Winy’s. This contradicts clue 7. Therefore the $42 CD wasn’t purchased by Vain; it was bought by Orca. Since it wasn’t Alma’s (clue 2), Moms’ (clue 3), Neil’s (clue 7), or Winy’s (clue 8), it was Dewy’s. The encyclopedia wasn’t Vain (clue 1), Rime (clue 8), or Waco (clue 9), so it was Paut. By clue 4, the atlas cost $42.   Waco bought neither the almanac (clue 5), nor the thesaurus (clue 9); it was the stamp catalog. Since Winy wasn’t Waco (clue 7), or Paut or Rime (clue 8), he was Vain. Also by clue 8, the $26 CD wasn’t bought by Rime or Vain, so it was Waco. Alma spent $15 and the almanac cost $20 (clue 2).   The thesaurus, then, cost $15. Alma, then, was Rime. By clue 7, Neil isn’t Waco; he bought the encyclopedia. Therefore, Moms Waco is the purchaser of the $26 stamp catalog.

Figures

FIGURE A

R	A	_	_	_
F	D	B	D	A
O	O	J	S	Y
Y	A	U	C	A
I	L	L	O	L
A	C	H	O	L

FIGURE B

FIGURE C

FIGURE D

FIGURE E

FIGURE F

FIGURE G

FIGURE H

Final Question & Download

The remaining state abbreviations form an anagram. Can you ratiocinate it?

Download the whole contest here in MS Word format.

You should now have abbreviations for 45 of the 50 states. The 5 remaining states are: Rhode sland (RI), Utah (UT), Montana (MT), Pennsylvania (PA), and New Hampshire (NH). If you successfully ratiocinate these you will be TRIUMPHANT!