Latin Square Questions

Some attribute — usually shape, colour, fill, or position — varies across the grid such that each value appears exactly once per row AND exactly once per column. The missing cell is the only value that satisfies both constraints.

• An attribute takes exactly three values across the eight visible cells.
• Each row uses each value exactly once.
• Each column uses each value exactly once.

• Three shapes, three colours, three positions, or three fills — repeated.
• No two cells in the same row share the attribute value.
• No two cells in the same column share the attribute value.

1. 1Identify which attribute is Latin (shape, colour, fill, etc.).
2. 2Read row 2 and find the two values already present.
3. 3Read column 2 and find the values already present.
4. 4The missing value is the third value not yet used in either.

• Confusing Latin square with sequence — Latin has no ordering, only uniqueness.
• Latin on the wrong attribute — sometimes a colour Latin hides under a shape Latin.
• Two-attribute Latin: each attribute is independently Latin, but they are not paired (that would be a Cayley table).