Chapter 6 · Paradigm signs

Read the strategy signs

Name the strategy from one owner-free sign: sheets, baskets, barriers, ropes and machines.

Tya has a compact head and upper torso above an enlarged lower body. She holds a clipboard with two numerals, one above the other, and drops an unmarked torn page into a bin; no table or row of old answers remains.

Picture path

  1. Tya keeps two values on one clipboard while an earlier sheet drops into the bin at her boot. What does discarding the earlier sheet mean?Watch where every earlier sheet ends up once a newer value replaces it.
  2. A laughing helper strides in holding out a full basket of nuts at arm's length. What does the basket he carries stand for?The basket arrives already full and delivered in one piece, not filling gradually.
  3. A striped bar rests across a sawhorse at the mouth of a passage and the ground beyond it is untouched. What does the blocked entrance mean?Check the ground past the bar for footprints; nobody has ever walked there.
  4. A dark table of mugs has been pushed flush against a pale table of plates so they now stand as one surface. What operation just happened?The two groups joined wholesale in one push; nobody compares items one at a time.
  5. Between three stools, the shortest rope is already tied joining two of them while longer ropes still lie loose on the floor. What rule picked that rope?Ropes simply connect stools into one network; there is no start point, destination, or lamp.
  6. Of three hanging chains, only the middle one runs under a beam where its links have been opened and fastened again in a doubled arrangement. What work is shown?The re-clipping itself is underway; no single link waits safely on a side clip.
  7. A boy raises chalk over a blackboard where one arrow maps three coins straight to a grid of nine. What kind of solution is on the board?One written rule jumps from input to answer with no chain of intermediate values.
  8. A hand flips one of eight identical brass toggles mounted in a single flat row, some up and some down. What is being worked?All eight toggles are the same size; none governs a span of switches beneath it.
  9. A startled boy studies a pegboard of hooks and a numbered tag through a magnifying glass, a brush in his other hand. What does the glass say about the problem?Nothing is being built or operated; the room's own furniture is under the lens.
  10. A boy works the slot and lever on the outside of a green machine while its open side shows tagged chains within. What does this pairing mean?Read both faces at once: few outside controls, working parts exposed within.