Here’s What You Need to Know to Solve Every NYT Crossword

Crossword puzzle fans and passionate readers are a Venn diagram with a lot of overlap. But even the most seasoned Saturday New York Times crossword connoisseur will bump into clues they’re unfamiliar with. So what should you study if you want to be the best of the best? Crossword Solver analyzed 6.3 million newspaper crossword clues from the last 110 years to find out.

Bad news, fellow book nerds: your literary knowledge will only take you so far in crossword puzzle solving. 14.5% of famous people in clues have to do with literature, so you’d better start brushing up on film & TV (30.9%) and music (20%). Explorers and inventors (0.9% combined), though, you can probably get away with ignoring.

Not all crosswords have the same focus. For example, if you’re doing crosswords in the New Yorker, Music is the biggest category.