Enter criteria and click Find Words
Twenty seven words put P first and S third, and two openings take about two thirds of them.
A takes the second box in nine of the twenty seven, thirty three percent, and O takes eight. E, I and U share the remaining ten and nothing else appears there.
So the second box is mostly a choice between A and O. Settling it cuts the page roughly in half, which is better than many patterns manage.
PASTE, PASTA, PASTY and PASTS come off one stem and all of them are ordinary words. PASHA, PASEO, PASSE and PASES fill out the A branch.
That stem is the trap. PASTE, PASTA, PASTS and PASTY differ only in the last box, so a guess inside PAST confirms four letters and leaves the fifth entirely open.
PESKY, PISTE, PUSHY and PUSSY come from the smaller branches and each differs from the others in several boxes, which makes any of them a better splitter than another PAST word.
E and T tie for the fourth box at seven words each. S closes seven of the twenty seven and Y another six.
Three words repeat a letter, PASSE, POSSE and PUSSY, so a visible double leaves you a short list.
They sit in the two big branches and differ in every box, so guessing one of each across two turns covers most of the page.
A leisurely walk, or the avenue you take it on. It sits in the A branch and is the only entry there ending in O.
It produces several common words that differ only at the end. Landing there feels decisive and is not, which is the main trap on this page.