![]() ![]() The issue is that different individuals perceive difficulty in different ways, and different publications do not want to alienate their target audiences. With the grading scale implemented and tested, one final question remains: why hasn’t a standardized grading system been adopted yet? As evidenced by this paper, creating the standardized and transparent grading system need not be overly complex. That said, having ten levels of difficulty should offer enough distinction between difficulties. ![]() If the grading scale used the set of real numbers 0-10 rather than the set of integers 0-10, finer distinctions could be made. Instead the problem is in lack of precision. But these subtle differences between difficulty levels are not an issue of the grader’s accuracy. Were the system more precise, perhaps USA Weekend’s “Easy”, “Medium”, and “Hard” ratings would not grade to 1. Ideally, the proposed grading scale would be better able to differentiate between the news publications’ difficulty levels. Likely an effort to avoid alienating casual Sudoku solvers, only publishing easier puzzles contributes to confusion between the grading scales. This means that such print news publications do not include puzzles requiring strategies more advanced than Hidden Singles. The vast majority of these puzzles had a strategic difficulty score of 0, requiring only Slicing and Slotting and Simple Singles. First of all, every single USA Weekend or Columbus Dispatch puzzle rated had at most a strategic difficult score of one. While other statistical conclusions are difficult to make due to limited sample sizes and unequal variances, it is worth noting some other trends in the data. A puzzle rated “5 of 5” in The Columbus Dispatch is significantly less difficult than a “Difficult” puzzle from or a “Demanding” puzzle from Will Shortz, as confirmed by a two-sample t-test (Appendix B). Also, it is immediately apparent that puzzles written for print news publications tend to be graded on a scale far easier than those available through other means. ![]() The data, available in Appendix A has been summarized in Table 1.įirst of all, it is clear that different publications’ grading scales do not line up. Sampling puzzles from each source and running them through Sudoku Grader, a Sudoku grading program written by myself as prescribed in this essay, some interesting patterns emerge in the data. These are two print news publications, a website, and a Sudoku book. Four possible publications to consider are USA Weekend, The Columbus Dispatch,, and The Giant Gift Book of Sudoku by Will Shortz. With the standardized grading scale finished, it is time to begin analysis of some of the major news publications’ and Sudoku providers’ grading systems. With grading systems like the one proposed, the Sudoku-solving masses can ascend from the bottomless, sinister, and putrid bowels of proprietary systems into the light of standardization. Just as every computer keyboard doesn’t need its own custom layout, every publication does not need its own Sudoku grading scale. The confusion and disenfranchisement can end. Making it even worse, creating the standards themselves does not require an earth-shattering amount of work.Ĭreating an open standard for grading Sudoku puzzles is accomplished easily enough. It is a crime to for such a rift to cause mass disillusionment with an otherwise enjoyable form of brain-teasing entertainment. Individuals are needlessly discouraged when their egos, inflated by relatively easy level “5 of 5” puzzles in one, are crushed to sand by “Moderate” puzzles in another. Every publication seems to follow its own grading scale, and the rifts between different scales can be treacherous. This is a world without standards, and a realm imbued with chaos. Imagine a world where every last screw has to be custom-built, and everybody drives on different sides of the road. ![]()
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