The other thing about touching the blanks is gives you not only the word length but also if the word is italicised or bolded then the number will be too.
It gets easier when you begin to recognise the format of various topics which come up quite often in pedantle. These include:
Famous people - usually there's a bit in brackets with a dash which is their birth and death.
Plants and animals - if it's a specific species there's a bit in brackets with two italicised words, sometimes 3 if there's a subspecies. It was carrot a couple of days ago.
Cities or other geographical entities
Chemical elements -the first sentence follows a very consistent form of wording and there's often a plus or minus followed by a single blank somewhere in the text. (Having recognised the form, there's only five four-letter elements and the bit in brackets looked like it was a seven letter Latin name. Not gold (aurum) or iron (ferrum)...That leaves neon (wouldn't have those + signs, it's a noble gas), zinc and lead - plumbum. Easy when you know how...and yeah, I'm a chemist 
)
Of course there are lots of topics which don't fit the commoner themes which can be hard to get a handle on