Ken Jennings has released another Kennections quiz—the word puzzle that asks you to find the hidden thread connecting five seemingly unrelated answers.
If you've never played before, here's how it works: you're given five clues, solve them, and then figure out what those five answers have in common. It sounds simple until you're staring at your answers wondering how "penguin," "spreadsheet," and "dental floss" could possibly be linked.
Jennings knows this puzzle intimately. He grew up in Seoul watching Jeopardy! as a kid, fell in love with trivia, and eventually became the show's most dominant player—a 74-game winning streak that earned him "Greatest of All Time" status. Now, as the show's host, he channels that competitor's instinct into creating Kennections for Mental Floss, a collaboration that's been running for about a decade.
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Start Your News DetoxThe craft of connection
What makes Kennections tricky to create is that the answers can't just relate to a theme—they have to be unambiguous. The connection has to feel inevitable once you see it, not like the puzzle designer was stretching. Jennings released The Complete Kennections in 2025, a collection of all his quizzes to date, and the book is essentially a master class in how to build these satisfying "aha" moments.
Interestingly, Jennings is also hooked on the New York Times's Connections puzzle, which shares similar DNA with Kennections. He and his wife play it together over dinner, racing to spot the pattern before the other person does. It's the kind of detail that feels very on-brand for someone whose brain was built for this kind of pattern-matching.
You can find the latest Kennections quiz on Mental Floss, and if you want to see Jennings in his element, he's hosting new episodes of Jeopardy! on NBC, which is currently running its 2026 Invitational Tournament.
