“Pre Teens” by Saral was our twelfth grid for 2026.

Stats: 70 solvers attempted this puzzle. 59 solvers managed to complete the puzzle and the bonus forms or atleast the grid. Only 33 solvers got the full score.

Try the puzzle here (Annotations will be visible on solving the puzzle or on clicking “Reveal Grid”)

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Bonus Questions: 1. Identify the Nina (2 wds.):

Ans

TWELVE YEARS

2. Hidden message connected to the NINA in the puzzle (5 wds.)

Ans

Clue Acrostic – CONGRATULATIONS TO ALL ONE ACROSSERS

Logged in solvers can check their submission Here:

Here’s the list of Top Scorers (For the full list, please check the Leaderboard in the Hall of Fame)

Out of 70 solvers,  59 completed and submitted the grid and/or bonus forms, of which 33 got the full score. Each of the following scored 169 points (Grid Score – 162,  Bonus – 7).

Al Sanders

Arnav V Raju

Arvind Ramaswamy

Ashit Hegde

D Narayana Swamy

Debasmita Basu

Harish Kamath

Himanshu Rajurkar

Ian J VanderSchee

Jyothish Balakrishnan

Lakshmi Prakash

Madhup Tewari

Madhusudan H Rao

Mona Sogal

NARAYANAN R

Neelima Rai

Nilesh Parmar

P. Venkatesan

Panyam Tejas

Paul Henderson

Prakash Arumugam

Priya Shyam

Ramachandra Nagendra Prasad

Ramesh Ss

Ramki Krishnan

Ratna Rao

Ratnakumar V

Samit Kallianpur

Samraat Saxena

Sandhya Paruchuri

Sohil Bhagat

Venkatraghavan S

Yasaswy Mokkapati

Congrats to the toppers and to all the solvers who participated.

Grid Rating: The puzzle got a solid rating of 8.5. It was rated a perfect 10 by 13 out of the 53 folks who voted (25%). The lowest rating was 5.

Favourite Clues:  The Top clues were

1. 9A Not out after hundred? A naughty pat for skipper (7)- 14 votes
2. 1A Crowds mostly sore about puzzle (9)- 12 votes
3. 18D Spoil peace talks shortly to happen (4,5)- 10 votes
4. 1D Ordinary cat licks spilled drinks (9)- 10 votes
5. 21A Top side of cathedral on Greek island is visible (8)- 9 votes
6. 10A Great effort in path gaining a victory (7)- 9 votes
7. 27A Note behind each turn in support for climber (7)- 10 votes

Thanks Saral. Thoroughly enjoyed this thoughtful and timely birthday gift for 1Across celebrating twelve years and entering its thirteenth year. Can’t believe we are officially teenagers now!