| 100% | AIM | 3 | Try to do |
| 100% | APE | 3 | Try to do |
| 87% | OVERREACH | 9 | Try to do more than is possible, say |
| 87% | SCARE | 5 | What haunted houses try to do |
| 87% | INSTILLLIFE | 11 | What Dr. Frankenstein tried to do? |
| 87% | SOLVE | 5 | What you are trying to do |
| 85% | SOLVE | 5 | What you're trying to do now |
| 84% | NEEDY | 5 | Help the ___ (what many charities try to do) |
| 84% | STARTSMALL | 10 | Don't try to do everything at once |
| 84% | STARTSMALL | 10 | "Don't try to do everything at once" |
| 84% | WORKATIT | 8 | Try to get the job done |
| 81% | SCAM | 4 | What a calling "Nigerian Prince" may be trying to do |
| 81% | SALE | 4 | Make a ___ (what a real estate agent tries to do) |
| 80% | CRAM | 4 | Try to do a semester's worth of studying right before the exam |
| 80% | GETUP | 5 | What boxers try to do after being knocked down: 2 wds. |
| 79% | REDUCE | 6 | What the enthusiastically environmentally conscious try to do with just about everything |
| 76% | CANTTOPTHAT | 11 | “No use trying to beat what you just did” |
| 76% | DESTROY | 7 | Does try badly to ruin |
| 75% | BAR | 3 | What you try to go under when doing the limbo |
| 73% | SUDOKUCUCKOO | 12 | One who turns into a raving lunatic when he tries to do those infernal number puzzles |
| 72% | LIEIN | 5 | What I try to do on Saturday mornings, but somehow a publishing deadline always seems to intervene |
| 70% | SKIP | 4 | What pebble throwers on the river bank often try to make the stones do |
| 70% | TURN | 4 | Bad thing to try to do from the middle lane |
| 69% | TAKEASWING | 10 | Try to hit, or what one can do with the ends of 18-, 26- and 47-Across |
| 68% | UPSELL | 6 | What the clues for 4-, 8-, 10-, 28- and 39-Down are trying to do, and what their answers feature |
| 65% | BUYUP | 5 | What Anthony Ward, aka. "Chocfinger", and his Armajaro Holdings tried to do with all the cocoa they could get in July 2010 |
| 64% | EXTORT | 6 | What Jeff Bezos accused the National Enquirer and American Media of trying to do him last year by threatening to reveal nude pictures |
| 63% | TASK | 4 | Something to do |
| 63% | AGENDA | 6 | Things to do |
| 63% | TASKS | 5 | Jobs to do |