Dont know the name for this type of puzzle

I'm sorry, but try as I may I can't find what this is called, and hence haven't been able to find if there's a logical solution, as opposed to simply trial and error. Thanks in advance for any and all help! Given are 6 rows of 4 items; there are 10 distinct items. Clues are then given after each row as below. The example I'm giving isn't an actual puzzle; simply an illustration. The solution is 4 of the following words, in a specific order:

dog cat frog bee One of these is in the solution, but not its not in the correct position. bird lizard ant frog Two of these are in the solution, one is in its correct position cat frog bee lion Three of these are in the solution, none is its correct position etc., etc.,

What is the best way to approach a puzzle such as this? TIA!

This is essentially mastermind using words instead of colored pegs. The easiest and quickest way I've found to reduce the amount of trial and error is to compare pairs of rows with each other. I would show an example of this on the above sample partial puzzle if it weren't for the fact that the above has *NO* solution! I'll make the following small change so that it does: change the clue for third row to 'Two of these....' Now let's compare the first and third rows. Exactly one item has changed (dog <

Sorry for not giving a valid example. Re: your solution, though, why couldn't the answer for the first row be Frog, and the third row be Frog and Bee? The answer will have 4 items in it. And also there are 3 more lines; I'll just go ahead and give the actual puzzle, and then say what I ended up doing to solve it. Thanks both of you for the feedback, though, and for pointing me to the Mastermind analogy. Dog Cat Frog Bee One of the items in this row is in the solution, but not in its current position Bird Lizard Ant Lion One of the items in this row is in the solution, but not in its current position Lion Fish Bird Tiger Two of the items in this row are in the solution, but neither in its current position Frog Ant Fish Lizard Two of the items in this row are in the solution, one in its current position Tiger Cat Frog Ant Three of the items in this row are in the solution, none in its current position Bee Cat Dog Fish Two of the items are in the solution, one in its current position

Solution is:

The solution you came up with on your own WAS through logic, not trial-and-error. Others will correct me if I'm wrong (and even if I'm not), but your approach is generally the most effective one to take when solving this type of puzzle. Look for a place to enter the puzzle - like a line with 3 correct answers - and deduce from there.

For another Mastermind-style challenge, you may want to check out http://www.PuzzleMonster.com/horoscope.asp . It's a personalized horoscope, but to get to it you have to figure out the passcode, which, like the horoscope, changes daily.

-Puzzle Monster

Because Frog and Bee are both in the first row (and the clue says only one item is correct). In moving from the first row to the third, we replace dog with lion and have one more correct item. Therefore, lion is correct and dog isn't.