The days are long and sultry. Chances are that you may be getting bored at home if you have not planned anything for your holidays yet. And to kill the boredom and activate your now dull grey cells, let’s exercise our brains with reading and then solving mysteries on 5minutemystery.com — a website for investigative minds curious to read and solve mysteries.

5minutemystery is an interactive mystery solving platform; it develops reading comprehension and critical thinking skills. But the site needs visitors to register first as only members can read short mysteries, solve them and earn points and rewards.

The stories are written in an easy language with intriguing characters, clever plots, twists and are submitted by the members and are solved by the members themselves. They even get two mysteries every week to be solved through their email.

Once registered, one can choose from “This week’s Mysteries,” “Latest User Mysteries” and from “Most popular”. You can even check out the percentage rate of the story being solved or attempted by members, which is also mentioned underneath the percentage.

So how does one participate? Simple, select a mystery and press Attempt it button, the page with the mystery opens and you will notice the time ticking at the right side of the page as it records how much time you take in solving a mystery. You will see the list of characters as suspects, choose the guilty ones, and click to solve when you think you are ready to solve it.

There will be correct sentences that are clues, and select a character that the clue either exonerates or implicates. Points are awarded for each clue you get correct.

The next page will show the results with scores, etc., if your answer is incorrect, you can read the full solution.

Other categories at the top left side include, “Mystery archives” loaded with more mysteries; “Top sleuths” where you can see top ranking members and the number of mysteries under their badge being solved.

I found the last category “League” very interesting, it is a great way to maintain healthy competition between rivalling classes, schools, regions, friends and even families, where everyone can participate and solve mysteries, earn points and see how their league is progressing (this gets really competitive).

There is also a “How to Play” section where you can view a video, open pdf instructions, etc, if you still think you don’t know how to start with the mysteries.

To bring out the young detectives from you visit: www.5minutemystery.com

Published in Dawn, Young World, June 3rd, 2017