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Fri, 18 May 2012

What solving strategies will help with split decision crosswords?

The key solving strategy is to use your knowledge of words and which letters are more and less common - then use this to help you whittle down the options.

Many people start at the top left of the puzzle and work there way around the grid but this is not always the best way.

It is often actually easier to start with the longer words than the shorter ones, as more often than not there is only one possible word that can be made from these.

The best method is to pick the start of a word in your head and then go through with that letter and see how far you can get. If you can get all the way to the end then you have a possible word - if not then you know that combination is incorrect.

Often you will find there is only one possible word that fits in a given location, in which case you should mark it in.

Another key strategy is to realise that there is more than one word that fits, but that they share letters in particular locations - particularly where these letters are crossovers with other words in the grid this is valuable information that can be used to whittle down the options in those other runs.


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