In Connections, you have to form categories of exactly four words that all have something in common. The trickiest categories often consist of four words that can have another word come either before or after them. This puzzle might be full of tricky categories.
Even though the grid of words is 7x7, there are 16 groups of four words. How can this be, and what else is there 16 of? Don't forget to use the answer submission box to double check if the categories you find are correct.
The grid can be split into four different 4x4 connections grids, with the words on the horizontal and vertical center lines being shared across categories. You can put the connection to each category on any one of the four lines outside of the appropriate 4x4 grids. This site may be helpful for finding phrases containing words: https://www.rhymezone.com/r/rhyme.cgi?Word=answer&org1=syl&org2=l&org3=y&typeofrhyme=phr
All the connections on the left side of the grid have the connecting word come before the words in the categories because the lines outside the grid are on the left, and the connections on the right side of the grid have the connecting word come after the words in the categories.
For example, in the upper-left 4x4 grid, OUT comes before FIELDER, LOUD, HOUSE and COLD, and in the upper-right 4x4 grid, OPEN comes after COLD, WIDE, PRIED, and AUSTRALIAN. Each of the four sets of four connections also are connected by a second layer of connections, which there is a fifth blank for. These four final categories form a cluephrase when read together, a synonym for which is the final answer.
For example, the categories in the bottom-right 4x4 grid are BELL, JORDAN, BLIND, and SUPPLY, all of which can come before the word CURVE. Notice that the shape of the bracket indicates that CURVE comes after all four of these.