How can a small clue help you solve a puzzle?

Have you ever looked at a puzzle and wondered where to start? Perhaps you spotted one tiny hint among all those choices. How can a small clue help you solve a puzzle?

Let's try a puzzle about four cuddly toys on a shelf. Someone has chosen one toy for a bedtime story. Our job is to find that toy using two clues.

The shelf holds a rabbit wearing a hat and a rabbit wearing a scarf. Beside them sit a bear wearing a hat and a bear wearing a scarf. Keeping track of all four gives us somewhere to start.

The first clue says the chosen toy is a rabbit. That tells us what to look for, without telling us everything. Both rabbits fit this clue, so either rabbit could still be the answer.

To eliminate means to leave out a choice that does not fit. We can eliminate both bears because neither bear is a rabbit. The bears can stay cozy on their shelf, outside our puzzle choices.

Can you picture which toys still need our attention? There's the rabbit with the hat and the rabbit with the scarf. Our first small clue has made the puzzle smaller, though we haven't solved it yet.

The second clue says the chosen toy wears a scarf. A scarf alone would fit two toys on the whole shelf. We need to use this clue with the first clue, not instead of it.

Among our remaining choices, the rabbit with the hat does not fit the scarf clue. We eliminate that rabbit. Only the rabbit wearing a scarf remains.

Before choosing, we check our answer against both clues. Is this toy a rabbit? Yes. Is it wearing a scarf? Yes, so the rabbit with the scarf fits the whole puzzle.

Eliminate. A small clue helps you solve a puzzle when you start with the choices, eliminate those that do not fit, and check the remaining answer against all the clues.

You can let your next puzzle unfold gently, one small clue at a time.