17 Common Misconceptions About Crossword Puzzle Apps
Crossword puzzles are a very enjoyable pursuit, testing our vocabulary and knowledge at every turn, and providing an immensely rewarding and satisfying experience; which is, on those rare puzzles where the answers seem to flow from us like water from a tap. The rest of the time, crosswords can be infuriating with esoteric clues that would stump even a grand master of random knowledge.
Thankfully, we are here to keep your hair firmly within your head, with 5 tips for crossword solvers that should help you navigate your way throughout the most challenging sections associated with any and all crosswords, whether it be a puzzle as innocent as the television Guide puzzle, or as harrowing as The New York Times crossword.
When solving crosswords, you will give yourself a head start on the harder, longer words, and eliminate a majority of the puzzle. by filling in most the easy clues first. You can break the puzzle into blocks, across and down, until you reach the end of the clue list. Sometimes there may be a clue which could have two or even more solutions. You may write all the possible answers down alongside their respective clues until you fill in enough squares to exclude the words that do not fit.
When you finish with all of the easy clues, start on the longer words. Employ a dictionary or thesaurus if you encounter a word with which you are unfamiliar. You might also make reference to a Bible or even an encyclopedia, if the clue will refers to a Biblical quote, or to a certain location or an event in history. Work through these clues in the same way you did with the easy clues, block by block.
As more words get filled in, the puzzle will get easier to solve, especially since some of the squares will be filled in when solving previous clues.
A lot of times, the harder clues will be a play on words that can be related to the theme of the crossword puzzle, so you may have to take the theme of the puzzle under consideration to be able to solve it. From then on, you could be able to solve the crossword by process of elimination and also by using some simple logic.
On occasion, the puzzle author may use some little tricks, like using numbers or symbols to complete parts of words or phrases. Solving a puzzle like this can require a little creativity on your side. By way of example, a puzzle may possess the word "arrow" in each theme related clue, and that could indicate a need to put a real arrow where these clues intersect. Quite often, you could have to replace a word search crossword puzzle with a number.
Read, Read, Read - There's no better way to improve one's knowledge than through reading. Every tidbit of information we come across is the one other kernel of knowledge that will be popped and put to use at the proper time when called upon by a crossword puzzle. Read books, read the newspapers, read about our history on Earth, and about how the world works, and you'll find your knowledge base might be more than sufficient to tackle even the most terrifying crossword.
Get the Easy Clues Out of the Way - Take a quick run over the clues and complete those ones which come easily to you. Rather than taxing your brain on clues with minimal help, filling in most the easy content immediately will give you additional letters and aid for the more challenging clues to come.
Don't Be Afraid to Experiment - If you think you might know an answer, but aren't sure, or perhaps for anybody who is totally guessing, don't be afraid to lightly mark that in and after that use those letters to find out whenever they make sense with other clues. You just may see that your guess was correct, and led you to solving several other clues as a result. Just the process of placing letters in one clue and using them to help solve another can help give you a different line of thinking on that other clue, helping you to solve it, even if your original guess was incorrect.
