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If you are starting your week with a game of Connections, you’re not alone, as it’s The New York Times‘ second-most-popular word game, after Wordle.
Newsweek has compiled some hints and tips, followed by the answers, to help you along and make sure your puzzle goes smoothly.
Each Connections puzzle includes 16 words, which players need to sort into four categories
There are varying levels of difficulty between the categories given each day, The game’s editor, Wyna Liu, has previously said.
“Some categories might be defined by their use of wordplay—palindromes, homophones, adding or dropping letters and words —rather than the literal meanings of the words on the cards. I saw three areas of potential difficulty that could be adjusted: the familiarity of the words, the ambiguity of their categorization and the variety of the wordplay,” Liu said.
When asked what tips she can provide players, she added: “One suggestion that may help save some guesses is if you start selecting cards and notice that there are five or more that belong to that category, try pivoting to a different category before making that first guess.”
How to play Connections
The game separates each group of words into four categories which ultimately have themes linking them in some way.
You select the four words you think belong together and if they are correct, they will disappear from the screen.
There are 16 words in the game in total, so you do this four times to complete the game.
You can play around with the board while you’re figuring everything out, moving the words to try out your connections.
There are also different levels of difficulty going from yellow (the easiest) to green, blue and finally purple.
You will only know a group’s color once its words have been correctly connected.
Up to four mistakes are allowed before you ultimately “lose.”
Newsweek has put together some hints and the answers for Monday’s game, so be careful scrolling down if you want to solve it by yourself.
Connections #526 Clues for Monday, November 18
Yellow: Tools used to get ready for a night out (not makeup).
Green: Services you pay for 12 times a year.
Blue: These four things have a similar pattern.
Purple: Different types of a creature that walks sideways.
Connections #526 Answers for Monday, November 18
Yellow category: Used in hair care
Yellow words: Comb, Dryer, Hairspray and Rollers
Green category: Monthly expenses
Green words: Gas, Internet, Phone and Rent
Blue category: Things with spots
Blue words: Dalmatian, Die, Domino and Ladybug
Purple category: ___ crab
Purple words: Fiddler, Hermit, Horseshoe and Spider
Did you guess the answers correctly? If so, congratulations. If not, commiserations, you’ll be pleased to know there will be another opportunity on Tuesday.
Connections is released at midnight in your local time zone and Newsweek will be back with another round of hints and tips for Tuesday’s game.
AP