Picked

As a detective solving the mystery of the crossword clue ‘picked,’ I first thought of words like ‘selected,’ ‘grabbed,’ and ‘plucked.’ However, the cross-section of words that interlocked with the ‘k’ suggested that the word in question was a past tense verb. With this in mind, I searched for past tense alternatives. I scanned my mental database and eventually landed on the word ‘chose.’ The definition fit perfectly with the clues at hand- it means to select from a number of options. The answer ‘chose’ also had the right amount of letters (five) to fit into the crossword grid. The carefully crafted clues had successfully led me to the answer ‘chose.’