Manzil

Try two candidates against one pattern

Try this newly written sample: ‘Something you might ask a helper to do’. It is independent of the daily collection. There are three words with four, three and four letters. The blank positions below hide letters; E is visible twice.

FOLD THE TENT and HOLD THE FERN both fit those word lengths and E positions. One means folding a tent; the other means holding a fern. The broad clue allows either. Which letter would help you choose between them?

• Visible pattern: _ _ _ _ / _ _ E / _ E _ _
• Candidate 1: FOLD THE TENT
• Candidate 2: HOLD THE FERN

Choose a reveal that separates the candidates

D would appear at the end of the first word in either candidate. It would fill a square but leave this particular choice unresolved. F is more useful: both candidates contain it, but in different words. You are testing its position, not merely whether it exists.

Choose F. In this exercise it appears at the start of the first word, and nowhere in the last word. Compare the actual reveal with what the other candidate would require:

• Actual reveal: F _ _ _ / _ _ E / _ E _ _
• HOLD THE FERN would require: _ _ _ _ / _ _ E / F E _ _

Reject a mismatch, then check the remaining answer

HOLD THE FERN cannot explain the F at the beginning. It also requires F at the start of the last word, which is still blank. Both observations reject it, because a correct letter reveals all its occurrences together. FOLD THE TENT survives both checks.

For this two-candidate exercise, submit FOLD THE TENT to finish. You do not have to reveal O, L, D, T, H and N individually first. On a daily puzzle, your shortlist may be incomplete: eliminating one idea does not prove the next idea right. Check the remaining answer against the category, clue, lengths, all revealed letters and all rejected letters before submitting.

• Recover from a clue interpretation that no longer fits

Know what a miss did—and did not—tell you

Suppose you had guessed Y instead. Neither candidate contains Y, so that miss would not separate them. It would rule out other candidates requiring Y and use one mistake. With the six-mistake allowance chosen for this teaching exercise, one miss leaves five; use the actual allowance displayed on your daily board.

A wrong whole-answer attempt also costs one mistake. If you are still choosing between plausible candidates, compare what a letter could establish before risking the complete answer. A correct letter can be useful even when it fills only one square, as F did here.

Bring the same check to Roman Urdu

The pattern follows the displayed spelling. A remembered expression may use a different spelling or an extra word, so compare it square by square. Supported alternative spellings can be accepted for a whole-answer submission where the puzzle supplies them; that does not make every paraphrase equivalent.

After a solve, identify the reveal that changed your decision. Was it a letter appearing somewhere unexpected, or a blank where your candidate required that letter? That is a useful lesson to take into the next puzzle. Keep the daily answer and revealing clues out of shared results.

• Why Roman Urdu spellings vary