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Hidden word

A string of letters hides one word — a bird, a tool, a country. Which of the options is in there? The strings grow longer without end.

  • Words
  • Timed
  • Endless levels

How it plays

You see a run of letters, with the kind of thing hidden in it: a bird, a tool, a country. One of the options appears in the letters, read straight through; find it. A word never runs across the end of a row.

As you climb the string gets longer — there is no end to that — the words get longer, and the start of a wrong option is planted as a trap (TIGE with no R). Turn on backwards and some words are hidden right to left.

Every wrong option is checked to be absent, forwards and backwards, so exactly one option is there. The working brackets where it was.

Keys

Space starts and skips ahead · 1–9 pick · Enter submits · Esc stops. On a phone, tap.

What it trains

This practises scanning a string for a word and checking it letter by letter. It makes you faster at this kind of search; it claims nothing about reading in general.

Learn

How to get better at hidden word: the method, the techniques, what each new level asks of you, and the traps the wrong answers are made of.

Your approach to each question

  1. Read the options first, not the letters. You are checking a few known words, not reading a string for anything.
  2. Take one option and look for its first two letters side by side, one row at a time — a word never runs across the end of a row.
  3. Where you find the pair, read on letter by letter to the end of the word.
  4. For a backwards question, reverse the option first (TIGER becomes REGIT) and search for that.
  5. Stop at the first option that is there in full: exactly one is.

Techniques and tricks

  • Search by the rarest letter

    The filler letters are drawn about as often as they are in English, so E, T, A, O are everywhere and W, K, V, Y, P, G, B are few. Find the option’s rarest letter first; there are only a few places to check.

    e.g. For WRENCH, find the W — there may be only one — and read on from it.

  • Reverse the word, not the string

    Reading a whole string right to left is slow. Spell the option backwards once, then search left to right as usual.

    e.g. HORSE backwards is ESROH: EGS[ESROH]TD.

  • Pairs, not letters

    Look for the option’s first two letters as a pair (WR, TI, CH). Single letters turn up everywhere; pairs are far fewer.

    e.g. For CHAIR, look for CH; backwards, look for RI.

  • The last letter decides

    The traps are wrong options missing their last letter. When a start matches, the final letter is the check that matters.

    e.g. TIGE followed by anything but R is a trap, not TIGER.

As the levels climb

  • You start with 10 letters, words of three to five letters and no traps. Then 14 letters; then words of four to seven; then one trap is planted; then 80% of the time.
  • Then 18 letters, words of five to nine, two traps and 65% time; then 22 letters and 55% time.
  • After that the string grows by four letters every level, without end, split into rows of up to 12. Search row by row, and lean harder on the rarest-letter trick as the rows multiply.

Traps to avoid

  • The planted start. A wrong option without its last letter is planted elsewhere — TIGE with no R, CROWBA with no R. Read to the very last letter.
  • Backwards traps are planted backwards. In a backwards question the trap reads right to left too, so it looks just like the real thing until the end.
  • Same-kind options. The wrong options are mostly of the same kind as the answer — other mammals, other tools — so the kind cannot help you choose. Only the letters can.
  • Seeing words in the filler. Random letters throw up fragments like THE or ATE. Ignore them: only the options count.

How to practise

  • Under “Hidden”, turn on “Backwards” once forwards is easy; questions then mix both ways, and backwards ones get four seconds more.
  • Raise “Options shown” towards 8: more options means more words to search for, and the rarest-letter order matters more.
  • Keep the same search order every time — options first, rarest letter, read to the end — until it runs without thinking.

Levels

Each question has a clock that comes from the work it asks for. There is no last level: at least one dial turns without end. Your level is judged on your last ten answers, every ten: 90% moves you up, below 80% moves you down, which holds most people near four in five right.

All of it is in the settings beside Start — how many answers a judgement looks at and how often it recalibrates, the thresholds, the time, which questions, how many options, and whether you see each verdict at once or review them together at the judgement. You can also jump to any level.

More words

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