5 Tricks to Solve Crossword Puzzles Every Time

Do you know what it’s like to become stuck on a crossword puzzle without the faintest clue of how to proceed? You try harder and look up every word you can find that might relate to the clue. Your overactive mind does not stop thinking about it until you find a solution.

We have all engaged in this mental exercise in our lives while attempting a crossword puzzle. It does not matter if you are a novice or an expert at solving crosswords; getting stuck is inherent to the process. Several gurus and professionals have revealed their little secrets with readers to help budding solvers solve their puzzles.

However, even if you’ve read these tips and tricks multiple times, they’ll not help you until you expand your linguistic ability and your lexicon. To help you improve your crossword solving skills better, here are five tricks to solve crossword puzzles every time.

Start By Solving the Easier Puzzles

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Consider taking up a manageable level crossword puzzle. You will better understand how the puzzle works, and you will gain more confidence. For instance, The New York Times crossword puzzle grows in complexity every day of the week. Mondays feature the most straightforward puzzles, as they get progressively more complex through to Saturday.

Therefore, try your best to solve as many as possible on Mondays, as their clues will be straightforward. You can progressively push yourself and go up to the challenging tests as you gain confidence.

Solve Puzzles Every Day

To become better at crosswords, you need to do a lot of them, and the best approach to do that is to incorporate them into your daily schedule. It means you need to solve a few puzzles from crosswordanswers911.net before you go to bed every night.

If you are commuting by bus or train, you can also print out the daily newspaper’s crossword and try it during breakfast or on the way to work.

Benefits of Solving Crossword Puzzles Every Day

There are various benefits of solving puzzles every day, including:

• Strengthening social bonds

Making new friends and strengthening relationships is a great way to work on a crossword puzzle together. People of all ages and backgrounds can help with crossword puzzles because they call on a plethora of knowledge. Critical thinking is an essential component of collaborative cruciverbalism.

• It might ease some stress.

You can enjoy a bit of a break from “the real world” by focusing on the clues and solving the crossword puzzle. It can help you feel at ease and happier.

• You expand your knowledge base.

Crossword puzzles often include a variety of trivia. You could learn about many subjects, including entertainment, history, science, technology, and much more. As we age, the Alzheimer’s Association further recommends that you do crossword puzzles every day to keep the brain sharp.

• It elevates your mood.

After several attempts at solving clues and succeeding, you will finish the puzzle and feel an incredible feeling of accomplishment.

Verify Your Spelling

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We all experience it. Even if you’ve spelt a word correctly since junior school, you suddenly realize that it is incorrect if you stare at it for too long. Therefore, it would not be surprising to find a misspelling among your answers, would it? You can make other clues in the puzzle section thrown off by putting an “E” before an “I.”

Other times, answers will come from alphabets entirely different from Western countries, such as Arabic and Russian. There are typically different spellings of these translated words. They usually use a parenthetical “var.” to show that the word in question has over one acceptable spelling.

Take Note Foreign-Language Answers

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Some puzzles will sometimes base their answers on foreign languages. But, how would you know if the answer is in English or another language? That will depend on the clue. The clue may refer to a specific city or country, or it may be in a foreign language, both of which are pretty sure signs that your answer has to be in that same language.

Crossword puzzle fans are familiar with lacking fluency in the languages, most often found in clues. Still, a basic understanding of articles, verbs, and individual titles in a few popular languages can go a long way. It is trendy for puzzle makers to use German, French, Spanish, and Latin.

Rules Apply to The Clues

Crossword clue creators always follow the rules. Answers, for example, always follow the same format as clues. Understanding this can help you fill in the endings of some answers, leading to other indications.

For instance, if the answer is plural, look for clues that end in the letter ‘S’ or if the answer is past tense, look for clues ending in the letter ‘ED.’ Likewise, you could have verbs that end in ‘ING’ or comparatives that end in ‘EST.’

The clues usually make it easy to identify these types of word endings. A hint will often name the English word when the answer is foreign and state the translation language. A clue may contain an abbreviation (Abbr).

Conclusion

A crossword puzzle challenges your brain and your vocabulary. If you follow these tips, you will find it easy to complete even the most complex crossword puzzles and enjoy the game as much as possible.

References

One Activity To Develop 9 Creative Thinking Strategies

How Crossword Puzzles May Keep Alzheimer’s Away.

 

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