In Order strategy: score more points with one try
In Order gives you five cards and one try to sort them, three rounds a day, with a point for every card in its right place. Because you only get one try, how you build the list matters as much as what you know. This guide shows how the scoring works and how to protect your points.
Points are about places, not neighbors
A card scores only if it sits in exactly the right place. That has a surprising effect: one card in the wrong place can push others out of place too.
If the right order is A, B, C, D, E and you put A at the bottom (B, C, D, E, A), the relative order of B, C, D and E is perfect, yet every card is one place off: 0 points. Swapping two neighbors (A, C, B, D, E) only costs 2. So when you're unsure about one card, avoid moving it far: a small mistake costs little, a big jump costs a lot.
Anchor the ends first
Start with the cards you're surest about, usually the oldest and the newest, or the biggest and the smallest. Put them at the top and the bottom, then fit the others between them.
Read the labels at both ends before you start: date rounds put the oldest on top, and number rounds put the biggest on top, like a ranking.
Compare pairs instead of ranking five at once
Ranking five things in your head is hard; deciding which of two came first is easy. Take the middle cards two at a time and ask that simple question. This is how a sorting algorithm works, and it works for people too.
Reason about dates
Date rounds use events at most 80 years apart, so you can't rely on the century alone. Link each event to something you know: before or after a world war, during your grandparents' youth, before or after television or the internet.
Technology helps: an invention that needs another one must come after it. Electric light needs electricity networks; flight needs light engines.
Reason about numbers
For heights, speeds and sizes, think in orders of magnitude before details: mountains are thousands of meters tall, tall buildings hundreds, monuments tens. The fastest land animals reach about 100 km/h, cars a few hundred, planes close to a thousand.
When two values are close, the puzzle is designed so the difference is still clear in reference sources, so go with the one you know is bigger in general.
Learn from every round
After you check, every card shows its value, and the round shows your order next to the right one. Even a 2-point round teaches you a few facts for good, and after three rounds you can see how you compare with everyone who played that day.