Word sweep
A page of words: tap every fruit, every tool, every colour — before the clock. More words each level, and then lures of a nearby kind.
How it plays
You are told the kind and how many there are; tap them all. A word of another kind tapped by mistake cancels one you found.
Levels add words and, from a point, draw the other words from a nearby kind — vegetables among the fruit.
Keys
Space starts and skips ahead · 1–9 pick · Enter submits · Esc stops. On a phone, tap.
What it trains
This practises sorting words by kind at speed. It claims no more than practice at it.
Learn
How to get better at word sweep: 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
- Read the kind and the number to find before you look at the page.
- Sweep the list once, top to bottom, and tap only the words you are sure are that kind.
- Count as you tap. When you reach the number, stop: everything left is another kind.
- If you are short, sweep again for the words you passed over as unsure.
Techniques and tricks
Count down to zero
You are told how many there are. Keep the count in your head as you tap — “three left, two left” — so you know when to stop and when to look again.
e.g. “Tap all 4 trees”: neem, banyan, beech — one left — poplar. Done.
Tap only when it is more likely right
A wrong tap cancels a right one: your score is hits minus wrong taps. So a doubtful word is worth tapping only if you think it more likely right than wrong.
e.g. Three right and one wrong scores like two right and none wrong.
Know the game’s kinds
Each word here belongs to exactly one kind, by its plain meaning. Learn where the edge cases sit.
e.g. mercury and earth are planets; hen is a bird; dew and sunshine are weather; plateau, meadow and dune are landscapes.
Name the near kind
Once the lures come from a nearby kind, name what each one is — flower, landscape, weather — rather than just “not a tree”.
e.g. Among trees: carnation and lotus are flowers, fog and breeze are weather, peninsula is a landscape.
As the levels climb
- You start with 8 words, 2 to find, the rest from any kind. Then 10 words; then the other words come from a nearby kind — flowers, weather and landscapes among the trees.
- Then the clock drops to 85%; 12 words with 3 to find; 70% time; 14 words; 60% time. After that the page grows by two words a level, up to 30, with about a quarter of them to find.
- The time is four seconds plus about two-thirds of a second a word, scaled by the pace — so one pass, not two, is what the clock allows on big pages.
Traps to avoid
- The near kind. Vegetables among fruit, or flowers among trees, pass a quick “plant” check. Name the exact kind before you tap.
- Tapping to fill the count. When one is left to find, the last tempting word is often a near-kind lure. Find it, do not settle for it.
- Your own second meaning. A word you would file under two kinds has one kind here — cube is a shape, mercury a planet. Go with the game’s plain meaning.
How to practise
- Read the working after every page: it lists the words of the kind. Any you missed or doubted, say to yourself with their kind.
- Name four words of each kind the game uses — birds, fish, insects, metals, trees, flowers, weather and the rest — away from the game, until each kind comes quickly.
- On big pages, practise the single sweep: read each word once, decide, and move on, rather than scanning the page for the kind.
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
All games →Word ladder
COLD to WARM, one letter at a time, every rung a word. Which word is the next rung on a shortest ladder? Ladders grow longer.Word deduction
Find a hidden five-letter word from letter clues. Each turn, pick the offered word that fits every clue so far — no guessing, only deduction.Word roots
Chronophobia, ichthyologist, frugivore: work out what a word must mean from its Greek and Latin roots — including words nobody has ever used.Anagrams
The letters of a word, scrambled: T L I P U. Put them back — TULIP. Longer words as you climb, and the hint of what kind of thing it is fades away.Coding and decoding
If CAT is coded as DBU, what is EPH? One example shows a code — a shift, a reversal, a mirror, letters as numbers. Find it, then code or decode a word.Groups of four
A board of 12 to 20 words, and exactly four are the same kind of thing. Find them among near misses that come in threes. Connections, one group at a time.