Not seeing the forest for the trees.

So a question on our first homework was something like:

What is the answer? (Hint: The answer should be the following:
4cc79ff6318ecedb45a283b92c656f96ba05a5b4d1c90e69b6da7da8b50a5c26
bad6f1ca002d538211f2765e159c9c5f55b41eb3720ddd2ab0a37a77afacb26a
a53794d214dc5dedbcecdf827bf683a24d0cb3c137775c0dbd24e9d6f04dc63c
)

I then spend the next couple of hours trying to decode the data via hexdump, xxd, looking for what google has on the various 16 bit pieces [4cc7 9ff6, etc etc]... looking for repeating patterns etc. Of course the answer is a lot simpler.. if I just didn't think about it.