Crosswords, Some Tips to Beat the Game

You have been at it all morning and you decided that it is enough. You slowly put down the paper you were reading on the table and placed the pencil you were using beside it. Even if you don’t say it out loud, anyone that is close enough can see the frustration from your face. You have been doing crosswords all morning and despite how hard you tried, you just failed to complete the puzzle grid.

You ask yourself in annoyance, what are the tips to beat a crossword game, if there are any and if there are none, they should come up with some?! Fortunately for you, you’re not the first one to ever been frustrated with not finishing a crossword. And even luckier, some people had the sense to organize a list of tips to solve crosswords faster.

Crossword puzzles have been around since the early 1900s. The first known puzzle ever published was in The New York World in 1913. The first creator who is acknowledged today as the creator of the crossword puzzle is Arthur Wynne. The popularity of the word puzzle received some notoriety in the 1920s but craze eventually waned down a decade later. Nevertheless, the fad might have died down but the popularity was still there which was why by the 1940s daily newspapers and even magazines include in their publications crossword puzzles for the entertainment of their readers.

Now you might already know that as you solve more crosswords, you improve in time. You can to learn more vocabulary and understand better the clues thus you are able to process them quickly than you used to. Even so, you might find yourself occasionally stuck on a puzzle or two.

There are several techniques you can use to make your problem solving easier and a bit faster. First, you need to understand is that puzzle makers would never want to create a crossword puzzle that is practically unsolvable, or at least that’s what I think. Despite the difficulty levels of a crossword puzzle, there are always some give-away clues and easy answers hidden in the clue list and the boxes of the grid. The first thing you should do therefore is browse over the list and look for the easy ones. Start with those.

The next thing you should look for are repetitive clues and answers that most crossword puzzles have. If you have been doing crosswords long enough, you would be able to identify these words easily.

Once you have done both techniques, the next step would be to practice your power of deduction. If you have assembled a number of answers already on the puzzle grid, you can actually deduce the answer to some of the clues by referring to the letters of the words already available. After building your puzzle solving experience, soon enough you will develop a high level of deduction skill.

Also, here’s a very useful tip. When you find that a clue is telling you or pointing you towards an answer that is a singular, present-tense verb or a plural noun, there’s a big chance that the right word ends with an “s”.

And lastly, have a couple of references or at least a dictionary by your side. Crossword puzzles are learning tools. If it encourages you to read and look for the answers, then I don’t see any problems with that. Others might call this cheating but in my book it is not.

Crossword Puzzles for Kids

Crossword puzzles are not only for fun, they can also be used to test our knowledge. Using this as a tool to engage kids in academics is considered to be an effective way.
Educators find these kinds of exercises and puzzles are great way to engage children in participating in class activities.

There are times when children who are attending home school request a lot of breaks. To minimize these breaks, there could puzzles like this. Children would not notice that these are still part of the regular class, they would think that this is an intermission period for rest

Crossword puzzles and other word puzzles can develop the children’s way of thinking and their behaviour. These puzzles can also improve the children’s reading, comprehension, logic and their vocabulary. To answer puzzle questions, children may have to research or look for answers in books, internet, dictionary, atlas and other medium of instruction.

Spelling is also among the grey subjects where a child can improve on while using crosswords are exercises. With regular classes, children are given a list of words they need to be familiar with. With crossword puzzles, children get to remember the words without exerting too much efforts memorizing. Why did they remember? Because they did not merely memorized it, they learned it through looking for its meanings in different ways.

Another good thing about crossword puzzles is that they always provide challenge. Children develop a sense of wanting to find all the answers and completing something academically related. When kids finish the crossword, they experience a sense of achievement and would be encouraged to learn more.

Different parts of language and grammar can be included in word puzzles like crosswords. What are these?

• Vowels and consonant sounds
• Syllables
• Singular and plural
• Vocabulary-nouns, verbs, adjectives
• Tenses
• Antonyms
• Synonyms
• Homonyms and homophones
• Anagrams

For younger children, you can include phonics to introduce the relationship between letters and sounds. Puzzles for older children, you can introduce synonyms, antonyms and other types of words. You can also create crossword puzzles to test the level of the comprehension. There could be stories and puzzles can be created out of it.

Make sure that the puzzles are age-appropriate. Also, do not forget to make them the puzzles creative and imaginative. This would make answering crossword puzzles both fun and educational.

The main benefit of letting children answer puzzles is that their imagination, creativity and sometimes even self-respect develop. Patience is also something they learn from puzzles. Children who answer puzzles become familiar with overcoming challenges and having enough patience to do so.

Crossword puzzles can also be a family affair. The whole family can have fun solving them and making the bond among the family members stronger. There are crossword dictionaries that could be purchased which can help in figuring our tricky crossword puzzles.

Technology has made everything easier nowadays. You can make custom crossword puzzles in your home so that you can engage your children with them and make it a daily habit, if possible. You can search for a program over the internet and download it to make your own puzzle. Free downloads are just a click away, while some software for crossword making may cost some serious bucks.

Crossword Puzzle Tournaments

Most people would do crossword puzzles in their homes, in their work stations, and in a very peculiar situation, in their bathrooms. But since the day crossword puzzle became a hit during the 1920s, it became a competitive sport where people would compete with each other to get the best solver of the crossword puzzle.

One of the most famous and widely popular crossword puzzle tournament is the American Crossword Puzzle Tournament or the ACPT. The American Crossword Puzzle Tournament is a annually event organized by Will Shortz. This competition started in 1978 and was first launched in late February of the year. The contest is usually held ruing late February until early March.

The ACPT became the largest and oldest, well attended crossword competition in the United States in 2009 alone, there were about 700 competitors who participated in the event. This competition is held in the United States, for the last 30 years the Marriott in Stamford, Connecticut became its home. Because of in increasing popularity and increasing number of participants, organizers felt the need for looking a bigger place. Thus, the ACPT moved the competition in Brooklyn, New York in Marriott Brooklyn Bridge in 2008.

What is the mechanics of the tournament?

There are seven rounds and in each round there is a puzzle which all of the competitors and participants should solve. Puzzles are different in each round. It is different in terms of sizes and difficulty. Criteria for judging would include the accuracy of solving and the speed of solving the puzzle.

After being judged for the different criteria, they will be scanned, scored and afterwards ranked. There are three divisions: the A, B, and C. In each division, the top three scorers would progress to the final round.

The final round would have a gain crossword puzzle that the final three contestants would be solving in front of the tournament spectators. The contestants would be wearing noise-blocking headphones to block sounds coming from spectators and commentators. The winner of the final puzzle will be declared as the tournament champion.

There are different prizes to acknowledge the range of those who participated in the tournament. There would be prizes for solvers in other skills divisions and for rookies. There are also awards for age and geographical division winners.

The first ACPT only had five puzzles constructed by Maura Jacobson, Jordan Lasher, Jack Luzzatto, Tap Osborn and Jake Steinhardt. The first winner of the tournament was a housewife from Queens, New York named Nancy Schuster.

Tyler Hinman is the current ACPT champion. He has already won the tournament for five consecutive times. He first won at the age of 20 back in 2005, he continued his winning streak after that. That is the longest reign of a champion in the 32 year history of ACPT. He first competed in ACPT at the tender age of 16, he placed 101 out of the 322 contestants.

ACPT is not the only crossword tournament, but it is highly regarded since it is the longest and most participated crossword puzzle tournament in the United States. In London, there is also a crossword puzzle tournament called the Times Crossword Championship.

The Times Crossword Championship started in 1970 where there were 20,000 people who were able to get through the first stage. There were three rounds where each round would have a puzzle they need to work on. Those who have survived the first three rounds were invited to participate in the last round where they would have to answer 4 more puzzles.

The winner of the Rimes Crossword Championship was Roy Dean, an office diplomat. After the fist year of the tournament, he became consistent in participating in the finals. He is now a crossword puzzle creator for the Times.

Crosswords as a Learning Tool

Crossword puzzles are not just puzzles. Sure, when the first crossword puzzle came in 1913, the intention was to add some for of entertainment in the pages of The New York Globe. And years after that, crossword puzzles became a phenomenon and entered a fad phase. It became such a popular game that libraries fell short of banning people from accessing reference books since they were disturbing those who legitimately need dictionaries and encyclopedias like students, professors, and researchers.

Today, however, the crossword is still a popular medium of entertainment and some people feel that their day is just not complete if they don’t finish a puzzle on their favorite daily newspaper. But crosswords can be more than that. Crosswords as a learning tool can in fact be explored further since the practice of such in a classroom can yield some encouraging and interesting results.

As an educator, you have the responsibility to pass on your knowledge and skills to your students. There are a number of tools at your disposal as well as teaching techniques in order to maximize the absorption and increase the understanding of what you are teaching. May it be English literature, physics, Chemistry, biology, or mathematics, students need to grasp the general concepts, theories, and facts about their field for them to successfully apply their skills when they face the real world after graduation. It is on the educator’s hands to teach or moderate learning.

In some courses, creating crossword puzzles can totally work to increase the learning curve. The difficulty of each puzzle will depend on the level of the students. But, crossword puzzles can be tailored fit for every possible subject. Through creating customized word puzzles, both teachers and students can study their curriculum through a whole new method.

The good thing about crossword puzzles is that they encourage logical thinking. And of course vocabulary can be enhanced and the practice of writing the correct spelling is also a benefit. Reasoning and deduction are also being honed in crossword puzzles. When applied to a certain subject as a teaching tool, students will be able to remember specific subjects, theories or ideas related to their course since in order to fill in the boxes in a crossword grid, people need to answer the clues first which can refer to terms related to the course.

The puzzles are also less intimidating tools for teaching which works well on some people. But expect that some students will not appreciate having this as one of your learning tools. Nonetheless, with crossword puzzles, students will be able to practice their skills in evaluating options and of course drawing up possible conclusions. These of course come from improved deduction skills.

Although, a little minor effect, crossword puzzles can also encourage students to hit the books to get the right answers. Encouraging them to read more on their own is a good thing for any teacher and is beneficial in the long run for students.

Puzzle solving can also be applied outside the classroom. It can be used for adult education especially in areas where people are already hesitant to new knowledge and skills being comfortable with what they have today. The possibilities of using crossword puzzles to teach and educate can still be explored and the techniques further improved.

Crossword Puzzles for Children Development

Generally, puzzles are good tools for the development of young children especially their motor skills and cognitive development. Puzzles like jigsaw are quite popular since the shape sorting and image grouping exercise improves their problem solving skills. Crossword puzzles for children development is also a recognized approach. Of course, the applicability and difficulty of crossword puzzles to be used in order to have the most significant impact will depend on the child’s age and probably their level of learning.

It is indeed important for children to be presented with puzzles appropriate to their age group. The reason behind this is the fact that children can easily become frustrated if they are unable to solve problems or puzzles. This only means that their level of development is not yet ready for a puzzle that complex. It would be best, therefore, to reduce the level of difficulty of the kind of crossword puzzles you give your child.

Other puzzles promote motor skills, but with crosswords memory, language and numeric skills are the ones being honed. With these kinds of puzzles, you don’t leave the problem solving to your child alone. You do the problem solving exercise together at first and eventually reduce the number of times you help him/her until such time that your child can solve the crossword on their own. If children are able to solve puzzles on their own on a regular basis, they feel a sense of accomplishment and they will feel good of themselves.

In terms of levels, the crossword puzzles should be given to children ages of around seven or younger. At this age, your child is able to identify words and phrases and will be able to understand the clues. Younger kids will learn the blocks of objects puzzles as well as word search puzzles first. And as they grow older, they will move up the ladder of puzzles like the jigsaw and then when they grow a few years older, the crossword would be the one they will tackle next. Crossword puzzles will teach your kid vocabulary, reasoning skills, spelling, and word attack skills.

Parents can easily get some crossword puzzles on the Web. The newspaper published puzzles might be too difficult for your child. Get them the appropriate puzzles or you can create one yourself. Child development experts have already recognized the importance of building vocabulary knowledge and word power through the use of crossword puzzles. The parents can have a specific theme for each crossword puzzle. That would be easier for the kids. Crosswords that have themes like animals in the zoo, pets, shapes, colors, and basic verbs and nouns or even objects found in the room , kitchen or dining area are some interesting theme for children. These puzzles also encourage them to look around their environment and identify the things they see.

Just remember that these kinds of puzzles are just to create a spark of interest in your children. You don’t have to force them to accept the puzzles that you present. Encourage them, that is the main idea. They might protest at some point but let them be. Create more interesting puzzles to keep them interested.

If you find the puzzles to be too easy for them, increase the difficulty of the puzzles you make the next time around. Always observe your kids and see what works for them now.

The Major Variations of Crosswords

If you’re familiar with crossword puzzles, then you know that a typical puzzle consists of white and black boxes. The white boxes would be where you will place the words that are hinted in the clues. But aside from the puzzle boxes you see in newspapers and other publications, there are other major variations of crosswords, some of which you might not have even encountered before.

Let’s go regional first. The American-style of crosswords is quite different from the British and Australian puzzles. For one, the American crosswords usually have word combination were the letters eventually “check” each other. So if you figure out most of the across or down words, you’ll find that the answers for one direction is also basically filled out. Not like the American style, British and Australian crossword puzzles have the white boxes positioned in such a way that half or less of the letters check each other out. In a way, the latter two can be more difficult solve.

Another popular crossword in the UK is the cryptic crossword. This one can actually be more challenging. The reason is that the clues themselves are sort of little puzzles. So you actually try to solve the clues themselves before you get to the crossword.

Code breakers and code crackers are other names for a kind of crossword called cipher. Cipher crosswords are very different from cryptic puzzles. You see in cryptic puzzles, the clues are puzzles themselves but in cipher crosswords, the clues for the white boxes are replaced with number 1 to 26 which serves as a cipher for the letters of the alphabet. Numbers correspond to one letter and when filled out, the boxes should contain valid words. If you look at it, the cipher crossword puzzles seem to be closer to being codes than being puzzles.

Other crosswords include the diagramless and the fill-in crosswords. The former consists of finding out the answers to the clues and at the same time the location where they will place the answers on the puzzle grid. In this kind of puzzle, the clue numbers and black squares are not indicated. So this means, you have to see how your answers can be grouped together to produce additional answers from the clues provided. Meanwhile the latter one, the fill-in crosswords, consists of a list of words and a puzzle grid. The objective is to find how you can fit all the listed words on the grid in such a way that all the resulting words from each intersection are valid.

The cross numbers is another variation but as the name imply, the clues and answers are related to numerical values. The clues can be a mathematical formula where the answer to it is the one you will place in the boxes of the puzzle grid. Some questions or clues may refer to a year of an event or an important date. Whatever the clues are, numbers are usually the answers and depending on the difficulty, the intersections of the numbers can be valid entries as well.

There maybe other variations out there, but what were mentioned are the major kinds. Other crosswords might be just derivatives of those puzzles above. You can check all them out or just focus on the traditional one instead. But to add to the challenge, most people will try out different kinds of crosswords just to test their skills. Just remember to have fun.

Crossword Puzzle Clues

Crosswords have been capturing the interests of many for decades. Since it graced The New York World in 1920s, it never looked back. It became a world-wide phenomenon with a lot of people trying to solve the hardest crossword puzzles ever.

To answer crossword puzzles, of course, you deeply rely on the clues. There are different kinds of clues a crossword uses. Knowing the types of clues make it highly possible for you to answer and finish the crossword.

• Straight or Quick

Simple and quick clues are the most simple definitions. Sometimes they would be in anagrams making it easy to decipher. However, there would be instances when a straight clue is not enough to figure out the answer, like in cases of synonyms.

We should also pay attention in the clues itself, when clues are in past or present tense. The answer would be in the same tense as the clue. Other straight or quick clues are those fill-in-the-blank clues which is where you can start solving the puzzle.

If there is a question mark in the end o the clue, it can be a pun, a metaphor or a wordplay. There are also straight clues which require colloquial answers. Colloquial answers or words would include whaddya, init, asif, etc.

Common three-letter answers are abbreviations are also used as answers. It is included or indicated in the clue. When asking for a PC key, there are also three letter keys like ESC, ALT, etc. Three letter answers can also be used when the clues are asking for directions or compass points.

• Crossword Themes

Crossword puzzles have themes. These themes are great clues when figuring out the words in puzzle. When the theme is identified, then the other words would have some degree of relationship, pun or somehow related with the theme word. An example of a theme, is a category theme where all the answers of the puzzle belong to one set.

Themes can be extremely unusual sometimes. One can identify the theme by answering the longest word or sometimes the constructor would incorporate the theme in the title of the crossword puzzle.

• First Entries

These kind of clues actually combine a few words into a phrase. This kind of clue is popular among British newspapers.

• Indirect clues

Some clues are metaphorical in nature. With this clues, the answer is not in their literal meaning. There would be times when the constructor would end the clue with a question mark to signify that it is a metaphor.

• Clues for cryptic crosswords

The clue itself has its own puzzle. This kind of clue has a definition at the beginning or end of the clue. Most of the times, the length of the answers are stated in a parenthesis after the clue. Cryptics whould also use homophobes and different kinds of wordplays. Cryptics would also include anagram clues and embedded clues. These kind of clues are more prevalent in United Kingdom.

• Double clue lists

There are times when one crossword grid can have two sets or lists of clues, one in straight and the other one cryptic. The solution can be different or the same. When the solution is the same, the straight clue sometimes serves as a reinforcement for the cryptic clue. This kind of format, enables both beginner and experts to work the same puzzle.