Down 31
What is the deal with crossword puzzles? As in, why am I so awful at them?
My parents gave me two crossword puzzle books for Christmas. I grabbed a pencil and opened one up Saturday night, expecting myself to be relaxed by the puzzle before I went to bed.
Nope.
I knew maybe… five of the answers off hand. I couldn’t decode a lot of the clues, and I found myself consulting the reference books in my house for the clues I did understand. You’re NOT supposed to look the answers up, right? It is supposed to be from memory?
Does this mean I have a bad vocabulary, that I don’t know very much, or that the clues are poorly written?
What is the trick behind these things? There has to be some strategy… like Sudoku…
Themocracy
LOL I stink at them too. AND sudoku. My mother loves them though, and so does my daughter. I have resigned myself to just admitting I’m stupid and moving on to something else.
It just takes practice like anything else in life. It’s okay to look things up. If you don’t know, you don’t know. But if you look it up, you’re educating yourself, right? You want to talk frustrating, try doing some logic puzzles.
i am horrible at cross words too… in fact yesterday i came across a book of easy crosswords and after an hour or so of not getting anywhere i gave up (and threw the book in the trash)… i’d had it forever and had gotten no where with it… oh well…
i am not sure if there is a strategy…but i love crosswords. i even do them in pen. i’m wild like that!
Ick. I suck at crossword puzzles. I just stick to word-finds and sudoku. 🙂
I HATE crossword puzzles! I’m TERRIBLE at them. I NEVER seem to know any of the answers. HA!
I MUCH prefer Sudoku puzzless!!! =)
I love crossword puzzles, but only Mon – Weds. Anything after that is too difficult for me. If I pick up a crossword book it has to be an easy crossword book. They do take practice – you’ll get better the more you do um. And I just had a conversation with my friend about them last night, and she said that you can do anything you need to do to get the answer (google; thesauras; asking) except for looking the answers up in the back of the book :o).
I realise that it’s been about a year now that I consider myself an actual crossword puzzle puzzler! I’m certainly no expert though, and I highly recommend that you check those crossword books you got and see what their level of difficulty is! Start off with easy ones, where all you need to do is just come up with pretty easy synonyms. Mix in a few medium ones, then work your way up from there.
I used to cheat and look up the answers for the really long words, and try to figure out the other intersecting words from there. Can’t be too tough on yourself if you really can’t get anywhere – if you get frustrated you ain’t going to have fun and you won’t learn, right 😀
I highly recommend puzzles by Kappa Puzzles, mostly because they have every puzzle in their book is “themed” so the fun of figuring out the clues sometimes makes up for the toughness. Also, the two I’ve bought from them have a steady progression of toughness, so you can hop around to see what level is easy for ya, versus that which challenges ya or totally stumps ya 🙂
I’ve never been a big fan on the crossword puzzle. Now, Sudoku, I’m completely addicted.
Kyra – if I don’t find any good advice in the comments after yours, I will be admitting failure as well!
Lisa – I got the okay from you to look things up, so here I go! 😉
CourtneyInControl – I was near throwing my book away too!
sizzle – you’re a badass!
Christina – maybe it is hereditary!
Kimberly – it seems like a lot of us prefer sudoku! I wonder if there are any studies that show what parts of your brain the different puzzles use! That would be interesting.
Gina (Mannyed) – Isn’t the New York Times Sunday crossword revered or something? I always hear it being referenced in movies and stuff.
*lynne* – I was secretly hoping you would shed some light, because I remember the crossword post on your site! Your advice is good, as I suspected it would be. If I am going to be serious about this I SHOULD get some easier ones… and the Kappa themed ones sound really fun! Sometimes I see the celebrity themed ones in People magazine and those don’t look too bad 😉
suze – I wonder what I ever did to fill my time before sudoku…. ha ha ha!
Well, I know that the NY Times crossword starts easy on Monday and moves to more difficult by Friday. Some people have said, if you’re having trouble, work on only Monday’s puzzles for a while and slowly move up. Other than that, I can’t think of any strategies offhand.
But if you need a cheat… OneAcross.com.
I always search the clues until I find one I know the answer to, and then try to get the words with whatever letters I came up with on the previous clue. The Sunday Times crossword usually takes most of the week, and even then I rarely completely finish it.
My wife used to do crossword puzzles. She was horrible at first, but she got into a groove when she started recognizing how they turn a phrase or ask a question.
Most of my knowledge is trivial but I’ve never had the patience for crossword puzzles.
kapgar – I think I will start with Mondays! Thanks for the site 🙂
Odie – I tried that technique, but it seemed like all the answers I knew were never near each other so I didn’t get anywhere!
ajooja – Maybe I will get better like your wife. OR maybe all my knowledge is just trivial like you!
Oh my gosh, I try to do those and the only way I ever finish is google.
Though I am a huge fan of word puzzles and soduko 🙂