(Note: The answer to each puzzle is a simple English word.)

Example Puzzle #1

VICTOR
THEODORE
DAMASCUS
MARTIN
ADRIAN
SOTER

(puzzle written by Chris Morse, taken from the MIT IAP Mystery Hunt)

Example Puzzle #2

Pleasures of Poetry    

Dorothy noticed a sign as she walked down the corridor:
Please pick up a copy of the reading for Pleasures of 
Poetry for Saturday, January 15. 

"Another IAP activity I don't have time for," she sighed,
"but let's have a look in any case."

She reached into the envelope on the floor, lifted out a sheet,
and began reading. "They call this poetry?! This is almost as
bad as that doggerel the Tin Woodsman showed me last
Valentine's Day."

Leah G. Troody (1967-)

THE HUNTER'S SONG

As a purplish shade to a donor to Yale,
Or a vessel off ground to a common relation,
A worker ill paid to an age large in scale,
Or an aspect of sound to a marked aspiration;
As these things relate, so does what this is not
To a key piece of data which seems to be sought!

(puzzle written by Kiran Kedlaya, taken from the MIT IAP Mystery Hunt)

Example Puzzle #3

hint:thin::trespass:
    :parses::stint:
    :man::scare:
    :footed::red:
    :Handel::third:
    :Al Hirt::folder:
    :redo::alfalfa:
    :Romeo::model:
    :birds::pink:

(puzzle written by Roger Barkan, taken from the MIT IAP Mystery Hunt)