| Solution: First of all, the "X"s in the diagram
are meaningless and are just used to make all the words five characters
long. Now, the important part. The words are divided into groups based
on whether or not they can be preceded by "UP" and "DOWN"
as prefixes to form valid new words (ex. "update", "upstart",
"downplay"). The top contains words that can be combined with
"UP", the bottom section contains words that can be combined
with "DOWN", and the middle section (as suggested by "upright"
and "downright"), should contain words that can be preceded
by both. The only two words that fit this description and the letters
given are "side" and "wind". This means that the four
missing letters are "NESW", the four compass directions. |
