Crosswords for schoolchildren

Hello, In the morning I shouted out that there would be crosswords at the Thinking Sports Olympiad, 5 hours later I realized that we had a small problem with this, which now needs to be solved in two months: Question difficulty levels We use difficulty levels for crossword questions: 1, 2, 3, 5, 8, 13 and 20. So far I had rated them as follows: 1-8: could be manageable for a school student (used in easy crosswords) 13: could be manageable for a broad-minded adult (used in medium crosswords) 20: for crossword fans (used in difficult crosswords). Problem The problem is with difficulty levels 1-8: namely, a 2nd grader does not know the same things as an 11th grader. At the moment, a question with difficulty level 8 can also be easy in 8x8. And that is not ok. Solution Since elementary school children are going to solve 8x8 easy ones, middle school students 10x10 easy ones, and high school students 13x13 easy ones, I would suggest the following system: Difficulty levels 1-3: could be within reach of an elementary school student. And the 8x8 easy crossword puzzle consists only of these. Difficulty level 5: could be within reach of an elementary school student and they are used in 10x10 easy crossword puzzles. In addition, 13x13 easy crossword puzzles also use questions with difficulty level 8 and they could then be within reach of high school students. What's next? In order to offer crosswords that can be solved in two months, I need to change the crossword generation algorithm: 1) 8x8 easy uses only questions with difficulty levels 1-3 and the order of selection would be 1, 2, 3 2) 10x10 easy uses difficulty levels 1-5 and the order could be 3, 2, 5, 1 3) 13x13 easy uses difficulty levels 1-8 and the order could be 3, 5, 2, 8, 1 I will try to get this algorithm working in the coming days (maybe even today). However, the bigger job is to re-evaluate the existing questions. There are no concerns about difficulty levels 5 and 8 - they could be more or less in place. The problem is with 7600 questions, which are with difficulty levels 1-3. You have to go through these questions one by one and think about whether an elementary school student would know it or not. For example, chemical elements must be removed from there immediately (to difficulty level 5). And what is also important - a replacement must also be found for all changed difficulty levels (to ensure fast generation of crosswords). For example, if you move the question "Titanium - ti" to difficulty level 5, the question "Tiina and Indrek - ti" with difficulty level 1 should be created instead (I guess these initials are used in children's crosswords). I invite all crossword solvers to think along: If you left-click on the question square, the difficulty level of the question will be displayed in the chat window - you can then think for a moment whether such a question is feasible for a primary school, lower secondary school or high school student. In conclusion: It's a lot of work, but we can get it done. And the result is worth all the effort!

However, the best crossword solvers should still be identified, not the fastest typists.

the better you can do it, the faster you can do it!!?

Mets - When was the last time you solved a crossword puzzle in Vint :)? But that's the point of the difficulty levels: 8x8 Easy is good for an elementary school student (because an adult can complete it in 30 seconds), an elementary school student can solve it in maybe 5 - 10 minutes. An adult could start solving 13x13 Easy.

What I meant was that these elementary school ones shouldn't be made too easy, because then the students will become a speed typing competition.

Elementary school students don't understand at first how to complete a crossword puzzle - today's children don't really solve crosswords.

Thank you for those details. It's true that crossword puzzles aren't that popular these days. Newspapers are no longer a common household item. Crossword puzzles in apps usually have automatic animations or purchasable clues.