‘Connections’ March 24: Hints and Answers for Puzzle #652

The New York Times has released its latest round of daily puzzles, and as ever some people might be struggling with Monday’s Connections.

The daily brainteaser features 16 seemingly random words grouped together in a box.

How To Play Connections

The aim is to find four words that link together into a category, meaning that there are four groups all together.

Each of the categories is separated into four colors. The easier and often more obvious group of four will become yellow once found all together, followed by green, blue and, the hardest or most obscure group, purple.

Once you have found one group of four words that are connected, they are essentially removed from the game and can no longer be selected while trying to find a link between the remaining words.

Users have four attempts, or lives, to correctly guess the four groups. If you are unable to get all four connections, the answers and their corresponding difficulty color will be revealed at the end.

Connections game — File photo of a woman using a smartphone.

Robert Alexander/Getty Images

Wyna Liu, Connections editor, previously answered a series of questions about the game for The New York Times.

When asked what tips she can provide players, Liu told the Times: “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.

“Doing so might take one of those extra cards out of contention, or at least remove a few cards from the board, making other categories easier to see.”

Liu also said that the original placement of the 16 words at the start of each game is intentional. It can result in players thinking they are connected when they are not the answer the game is looking for.

Below, Newsweek has offered some clues to the categories and how to solve Monday’s game.