So is the Friday puzzle really harder than the rest? On the basis of NITCH calculations, the answer is not conclusive for the Times Quick Cryptic Crossword. This page shows the rolling average solving times for reference solvers over a six-month period. There doesn't seem to be a huge difference that depends on the day of the week. This page is also a good place to see the average completion times for reference solvers - click the Show button to see the details for each period.
This page summarises the average times taken by reference solvers in each six-month period. To track the trends from Monday through to Friday, each month is taken to be finished on the final Friday of the month (and the next month is taken to start on the following Monday). For each of the reference solvers, the site looks at how many puzzles they have solved correctly and made it to the leaderboard in the period. If they pass several criteria (sufficient overall puzzles on the leaderboard, enough on each day, etc) their results are averaged and they are added to the set of reference solvers used for the period.
For the selected reference solvers, the average NITCH for each day of the week is also calculated, i.e. the solving time on each day of the week is compared to the reference solver's overall average for the 6-month period and then averaged again over all users. This page give the summary results, but you can look at all the NITCH codes for the long list of puzzles on the Crosswords page to confirm any trend.
Month | Start Date | End Date | Solver Count | Average Time | Monday | Tuesday | Wednesday | Thursday | Friday | |
---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
Sep 2024 | 01-04-2024 | 27-09-2024 | 215 | 08:31 | 95 | 99 | 98 | 100 | 103 | Show |
Aug 2024 | 26-02-2024 | 30-08-2024 | 211 | 08:53 | 95 | 96 | 99 | 101 | 104 | Show |
Jul 2024 | 29-01-2024 | 26-07-2024 | 207 | 08:48 | 95 | 97 | 100 | 102 | 101 | Show |
Jun 2024 | 01-01-2024 | 28-06-2024 | 202 | 09:29 | 93 | 98 | 100 | 101 | 103 | Show |
May 2024 | 27-11-2023 | 31-05-2024 | 203 | 09:15 | 93 | 98 | 99 | 101 | 105 | Show |
Apr 2024 | 30-10-2023 | 26-04-2024 | 199 | 09:03 | 92 | 98 | 97 | 103 | 106 | Show |
Feb 2024 | 28-08-2023 | 23-02-2024 | 195 | 08:06 | 91 | 101 | 97 | 102 | 106 | Show |
Jan 2024 | 31-07-2023 | 26-01-2024 | 179 | 07:59 | 90 | 100 | 98 | 101 | 106 | Show |
Dec 2023 | 03-07-2023 | 29-12-2023 | 155 | 06:54 | 90 | 101 | 96 | 102 | 105 | Show |
Nov 2023 | 29-05-2023 | 24-11-2023 | 142 | 06:36 | 89 | 101 | 97 | 102 | 106 | Show |
Oct 2023 | 01-05-2023 | 27-10-2023 | 124 | 05:39 | 93 | 100 | 98 | 100 | 105 | Show |
Sep 2023 | 03-04-2023 | 29-09-2023 | 113 | 05:23 | 93 | 99 | 97 | 102 | 104 | Show |
Aug 2023 | 27-02-2023 | 25-08-2023 | 108 | 05:12 | 95 | 99 | 97 | 102 | 103 | Show |