ACPT practice, days 4 and 5

I was covering another instructor's class this morning, so it was a big long day today. I had a time of 8-and-a-half for Thursday's puzzle, although I claim that I was distracted by the fact that I was in class, though on break, at the time, and I had to tell students that the reason they were having troubles drawing a line is not that the computer system was wrong but that they had, in fact, only managed to find one point on the line, and you can't draw much of a line with just one point.



Read more, rather spoilery, so don't read it


We'll see if I've got this spoiler thing down.

My official time on Friday's puzzle was 9:12; I forget how many times I submitted it until I got the NE corner right. It's not as though the clue for 6-A (or, for that matter, the answer) could in any way assist in solving the puzzle. I know I had
NESTED rather than MESHED at first, and it gradually got changed bit by bit, but that N didn't change (what's wrong with WHIMWHAN that isn't wrong with WHIMWHAM?)

Clues/answers that made me happy: 6-D, 34-A, 58-A; clues/answers that made me unhappy: 6-A, 26-A, 57-A.

I know that on Friday you shouldn't be scared of the long entries, since they're "straight"--no letter substitutions etc.--but I usually don't get them all right first try (since there's usually a lot of 15-letter phrases that have the one T, the E, and maybe the R that I've usually managed to fill in). So I was pleased.