Using completing-read efficiently

[Heime]

Have been using completing-read in the following way.

I customarily cycle through the COLLECTION items by repeating <down>.
Having been pointed out to me that cycling is not an efficient
way to get to something, I would like to try new ways.

One suggestion has been to sort completion candidates to tame dumb cycling. 
Being able to filter them is another.

Would I need to change the code for sorting and filtering ? It would be good 
to have some instructions on how to use such things in practice.

Another aspect has been completion against the history. I know absolutely 
nothing about history, though.

  (interactive
   (list
    (let ( (cseq '("EXTEN" "DISAB" "TABTR")) )
      (completing-read " Changeling: " cseq nil t "TABTR"))))