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Q first and I third covers 26 words, and twenty five of them put a U in the box between.
QUICK, QUITE, QUIET and QUILT are the most common entries, and every one of them runs QUI.
U takes about ninety six percent of that box. Only QAIDS breaks the pattern, and it is a word almost nobody would reach for.
So the letter between is decided before you start, which means every guess you make should be spent on the last two boxes instead.
QUILL, QUIRK, QUINT and QUIPS all keep the QUI opening and differ only across those last two letters.
QUICK, QUITE and QUIET are the three most common, and between them they test C, K, T and E.
If none of those lands, QUILT and QUILL are the next pair, and they differ in the last box alone.
No. QUEEN puts E in the third box rather than I. Everything else about the shape matches, which is why it gets guessed here.
All but one. QAIDS is the single exception, and it is rare enough that you can treat the QU opening as fixed.
They use the same five letters with the T and E swapped, so a guess on one tells you very little about the other. That pair is the trap on this page.