The difficulty of a puzzle is based on the relevance and the positioning of the given numbers rather than their quantity. Surprisingly, the number of givens does not always reflect a puzzle's difficulty. Computer solvers can estimate the difficulty for a human to find the solution, based on the complexity of the solving techniques required. Some online versions offer several difficulty levels.
Most publications sort their Sudoku puzzles into four or five rating levels, although the actual cut-off points and the names of the levels themselves can vary widely. Typically, however, the titles are synonyms of "easy", "intermediate", "hard", and "challenging". An easy puzzle can be solved using only scanning; an intermediate puzzle may take markup to solve; a hard or challenging puzzle will usually take analysis.
Another approach is to rely on the experience of a group of human test solvers. Puzzles can be published with a median solving time rather than an algorithmically defined difficulty level.
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