Employment Assortment Assessment
by Matt Ruhlen
Answer: SONOGRAPHER, RADIOLOGIST, TASTETESTER, RESEARCHERS
The career tests involve dropping 42 white balls through the chutes at the top of the grid and seeing where they land. The legend is useful for figuring out what the various objects encountered do:
- Top chute: Causes the ball to go straight down.
- Vertical wall: Causes the ball to go straight down.
- Diagonal wall: Slants a particular direction. Causes the ball to go to the space that is both one below and one to the left or right, as directed.
- Paintbrush: Adds its color to the originally white ball. If a ball has any of one color, it has it in full, so more of that color later on doesn't change it. A ball that's red and yellow is orange; a ball that's red and blue is purple; a ball that's blue and yellow is green; a ball that's a primary color plus any secondary color is considered black. Paintbrushes do not alter a ball's direction.
- Cannon: Is pointed in one direction. Fires the ball straight that direction until it encounters a wall.
- Catapult: Is pointed in one direction. The arc goes up one and over; over one; over one; down two and over one; down three and over one; down four and over one; down five and over one.
- Conveyor: Has an arrow which shows its direction. Moves the ball in that direction until it falls straight down off the edge, except if the ball is ever the color of the conveyor space, in which case it falls straight down. (Black and white are not treated as colors.)
- Mirror: Transports immediately to the other mirror and drops the ball straight down.
- Wormhole: Transports immediately to the other wormhole and drops the ball straight down.
Once a ball finishes its journey, it will drop through one of the spaces in the bottom row. Multiple balls may drop through the same space.
| enter | 1 | 2 | 3 | 4 | 5 | 6 | 7 | 8 | 9 | 10 | 11 | 12 | 13 | 14 | 15 | 16 | 17 | 18 | 19 | 20 | 21 | 22 | 23 | 24 | 25 | 26 | 27 | 28 | 29 | 30 | 31 | 32 | 33 | 34 | 35 | 36 | 37 | 38 | 39 | 40 | 41 | 42 |
| exit | 2 | 3 | 21 | 20 | 42 | 5 | 4 | 7 | 42 | 10 | 8 | 9 | 42 | 12 | 32 | 36 | 11 | 35 | 19 | 33 | 42 | 18 | 34 | 6 | 25 | 7 | 1 | 29 | 28 | 24 | 23 | 24 | 27 | 26 | 30 | 13 | 24 | 14 | 40 | 38 | 41 | 37 |
When a ball drops through the bottom space of a particular column, write the space's Morse code character (dot, dash, or blank) above the chute where the ball dropped from. Reading across the top, these words are spelled in Morse code.
Head Quarter:
000000000111111111122222222223333333333444 123456789012345678901234567890123456789012 ... --- -. --- --. .-. .- .--. .... . .-.
This spells SONOGRAPHER.
French Quarter:
000000000111111111122222222223333333333444 123456789012345678901234567890123456789012 .-. .- -.. .. --- .-.. --- --. .. ... -
This spells RADIOLOGIST.
Fiscal Quarter:
000000000111111111122222222223333333333444 123456789012345678901234567890123456789012 - .- ... - . - . ... - . .-.
This spells TASTETESTER.
Last Quarter:
000000000111111111122222222223333333333444 123456789012345678901234567890123456789012 .-. . ... . .- .-. -.-. .... . .-. ...
This spells RESEARCHERS.