Which Mode, and Where to Start
Explain, Quiz and Exam are three different jobs, not three difficulty levels. Explain teaches, Quiz checks while you learn, Exam measures under pressure. This page covers which to use when, what to do when material is too dense, and how to start a subject you know nothing about.
The Three Modes, and What Each Is For
Use them in that order within a subtopic, and cycle back as often as you like.
- Explain Mode — to understand it the first time. Walks through the material in chunks with a knowledge check at each step. This is where learning happens, and also where it is easiest to fool yourself that it has.
- Quiz Mode — to check while you are still learning. Lower stakes, immediate feedback, use it straight after a subtopic while the material is fresh.
- Exam Mode — to measure, not to learn. Timed, covering the subtopics you choose, and it produces a mastery level with your strong and weak areas. Its value is diagnostic: it tells you where to spend your remaining time.
When the Material Is Too Dense
Inside Explain Mode, <strong>Simplify</strong> rewrites the current explanation in plainer terms and <strong>Explain Further</strong> goes deeper on the same point. Use Simplify when a paragraph will not go in, and Explain Further when you half-understand something and want to test whether it holds up — a claim that falls apart under expansion is one you have not understood yet. Neither costs you your place in the roadmap.
Starting a Subject You Know Nothing About
Starting at the beginning and going straight through is a reasonable instinct, and it is usually the wrong one when the subject is unfamiliar — it spends your freshest attention on the introduction and leaves the hard middle for when you are tired. Describe the topic and let the roadmap of subtopics form first: seeing the shape of a subject before studying it tells you which parts are foundations for later ones. Then do one fast pass over everything before trying to master any of it, so nothing is a complete surprise the second time through.
Study From the Source, or From Questions?
Both, in that order. Working only from question banks teaches you the questions rather than the subject, and it collapses the moment an exam asks something phrased differently. Working only from the source feels thorough but hides what you cannot yet do. The sequence that works is to understand from your own material first, then use questions to find out where that understanding is thinner than it felt.