M2M Day 249: I applied a language learning technique to my crossword puzzle training, and it’s working like magic

This post is part of Month to Master, a 12-month accelerated learning project. For July, my goal is to solve a Saturday New York Times crossword puzzle in one sitting without any aid.

Yesterday, to help me memorize all the clues and answers from eight years of NYT crossword puzzles, I built a “Crossword Trainer” computer program.

The program displays a random clue . Then, when prompted, it displays the answer and an explanation of the answer.

Also, importantly, I designed the program so I can control the size of the input space. In other words, during a session, rather than having the program randomly select a clue from the entire 12,000-line data set, I can have it select a clue only from 100 lines, for example (where these 100 lines would be considered the input space).

Using this ability to change the size and specificity of the input space of a training session, I was able to craft a highly effective training method. In fact, after two days (four hours) of using this method, I’m shocked at how much I’ve retained: So far, I’ve successfully memorized 1,600 clues and 1,600 answers with essentially 100% retention.

Let me explain how this method works…

The method is based on a concept called Space Repetition, which was originally developed by linguist Paul Pimsleur as an accelerated method for acquiring foreign languages (I also made use of this method during my foreign language challenge in April).

In general, when using this method, new material is first reviewed with high frequency and many repetitions, and then over time, the frequency is reduced and repetitions are spaced further and further apart.

I’ve found this approach easily applicable to the crossword puzzle situation, and a surprisingly pleasant way to train (In fact, I don’t actually have to actively memorize anything… it just sort of happens).

Specifically, here’s how I designed my 54-minute training program (My one-way commute on CalTrain is 54 minutes. Hence, the seemingly random number):

My Crossword Training Program

BLOCK 1: For 6 minutes, use the Crossword Trainer to train on lines 1–100 of the crossword data.

BLOCK 2: For 6 minutes, use the Crossword Trainer to train on lines 101–200 of the crossword data.

INTEGRATION 1: For 6 minutes, use the Crossword Trainer to train on lines 1–200 of the crossword data. (This step integrates B1 and B2)

BLOCK 3: For 6 minutes, use the Crossword Trainer to train on lines 201–300 of the crossword data.

INTEGRATION 2: For 6 minutes, use the Crossword Trainer to train on lines 101–300 of the crossword data. (This step integrates B2 and B3)

INTEGRATION 3: For 6 minutes, use the Crossword Trainer to train on lines 1–300 of the crossword data. (This step integrates B1, B2, and B3)

BLOCK 4: For 6 minutes, use the Crossword Trainer to train on lines 301–400 of the crossword data.

INTEGRATION 4: For 5 minutes, use the Crossword Trainer to train on lines 201–400 of the crossword data. (This step integrates B3 and B4)

INTEGRATION 5: For 4 minutes, use the Crossword Trainer to train on lines 101–400 of the crossword data. (This step integrates B2, B3, and B4)

INTEGRATION 6: For 3 minutes, use the Crossword Trainer to train on lines 1–400 of the crossword data. (This step integrates B1, B2, B3, and B4)

In the past two days, I’ve completed four of these sessions: Two during my two morning commutes and two during my two evening commutes. In total, I’ve learned 1,600 out of the 12,000 lines of data (~13%).

I’ve also spent a few minutes integrating all of the sessions together.

A few things to point out…

1. When I add new material, I’m adding the material in blocks of 100. But, this doesn’t mean that I’m adding 100 new crossword answers at a time. Instead, each block contains about 20 distinct answers, each clued (on average) in five different ways.
2. As I mentioned, when using the “Crossword Trainer”, I’m not trying to actively memorize anything in particular. Instead, when I see a clue, I simply try to mentally guess the answer. Then, I reveal the answer (and read the explanation if it’s my first pass through). If I don’t know the answer, I don’t try to remember it. Over time, I’ll naturally start remembering the answers just based on the format of Spaced Repetition.
3. I’m already starting to learn a weird array of trivia. There’s a lot of French and Latin words in crossword puzzles apparently. There’s also a fair bit of Greek mythology. Two notably random facts that I’ve learned so far include: i) Noah, from the Bible, had a son named Ham; ii) The original name for Eggo was Froffles.

So far, I’m suspending my disbelief that this knowledge will transfer to new crossword puzzles, but I have a strong suspicion that it will. I’ll look into this further over the next couple days.

In the meantime, I’m going to continue training in this way, as well as continue solving a few puzzles each day.

Read the next post. Read the previous post.

Max Deutsch is an obsessive learner, product builder, guinea pig for Month to Master, and founder at Openmind.

If you want to follow along with Max’s year-long accelerated learning project, make sure to follow this Medium account.