Study guides
General study advice is nearly useless by the time it reaches a specific subject. Spaced repetition is real and it does not tell you that bonding is the hinge chemistry turns on, that the history skills unit is worth doing first rather than last, or that most people who think they are bad at maths broke somewhere identifiable and fixable.
These guides are the subject-specific version. Each one is about how that subject is actually built, the order that works, where people reliably get stuck, and what to do when they do. They link into the units they refer to, so you can act on any of it immediately.
All 22 guides
- How to Learn MathsAlmost nobody is bad at maths. Almost everybody who thinks they are broke somewhere specific and kept going. A guide to finding your actual gap, why fractions are the usual culprit, and what practice should look like.9 min read
- How to Learn BiologyBiology looks like the memorisation subject and mostly is not. A guide to the four ideas the whole subject reduces to, why the vocabulary is the real difficulty, and the order that stops each topic arriving as unrelated news.9 min read
- How to Learn ChemistryChemistry is the subject people most often try to memorise and most reliably should not. A practical guide to the order that works, why bonding is the hinge the whole subject turns on, and what to do when the calculations stop making sense.9 min read
- How to Learn PhysicsMost wrong physics answers come from a wrong picture, not wrong arithmetic. A guide to why intuition fails here specifically, why free-body diagrams are not optional, and what to do when the equations stop meaning anything.9 min read
- How to Learn HistoryDates are the least important thing in history and the most heavily revised. A guide to why causation beats chronology, why the skills unit belongs first rather than last, and how to read a source without taking it on trust.9 min read
- How to Learn GeographyGeography is not capital cities. A guide to why plate tectonics is the idea that makes physical geography cohere, how the human and physical halves explain each other, and why every case study is worth more than a definition.8 min read
- How to Learn ScienceThis track is about method rather than any one field, which makes it the most transferable subject on the site. A guide to what a fair test actually requires, why a single study rarely settles anything, and how to tell science from things shaped like it.8 min read
- How to Learn PsychologyPsychology is the one subject that tells you how to learn every other one. A guide to using its own findings on yourself, why the famous studies come with caveats, and how to avoid the trap of it all sounding obvious.9 min read
- How to Learn TechnologyKnowing where the buttons are is not knowing technology, and it expires with every redesign. A guide to the structural knowledge that does not, why you should learn networks before apps, and how to think about AI without either hype or panic.8 min read
- How to Learn EconomicsEconomics is not about money, and treating it as though it is makes the whole subject harder. A guide to thinking at the margin, why supply and demand gets misapplied constantly, and how to tell the model from the world.8 min read
- How to Learn EnglishReading closely and writing clearly are craft, not talent. A guide to why first drafts are supposed to be bad, how to find a theme without guessing, and the punctuation rules that actually change meaning.8 min read
- How to Learn PhilosophyPhilosophy is not opinion with longer words. A guide to reading slowly on purpose, why you must argue against your own position, and how to tell a genuine disagreement from two people using a word differently.8 min read
- How to Learn ArtMost people who believe they cannot draw were never taught the three skills involved. A guide to drawing what you see rather than what you know, why value does more work than line, and how to look at a painting on purpose.8 min read
- How to Learn Music TheoryTheory describes what listeners already hear; it does not impose rules on composers. A guide to learning it through your ears rather than on paper, why intervals matter more than chord shapes, and where notation actually helps.8 min read
- How to Learn World MythologyMythology is not a list of gods to memorise. A guide to reading myths as evidence about the people who told them, why the same stories recur without contact, and how to handle sources written by outsiders.8 min read
- How to Learn About ReligionStudying religion is not the same as practising or judging one. A guide to the descriptive stance, why the world religions template distorts what it describes, and how to tell practice apart from belief.8 min read
- How to Learn AstronomyAstronomy is the science where you cannot touch anything you study, so almost everything is inferred from light. A guide to fixing the geometry misconceptions almost everyone carries, and to what the evidence actually is.8 min read
- How to Learn About Animals and NatureNatural history looks like a catalogue and becomes an explanation the moment evolution is in place. A guide to reading an animal's body for its way of life, and to why grouping by ancestry beats grouping by appearance.8 min read
- How to Learn About DinosaursPalaeontology is the best available lesson in reasoning from incomplete evidence. A guide to the definition that fixes half the misconceptions, why deep time is the hard part, and how to tell established from provisional.8 min read
- How to Learn to CookFollowing recipes and being able to cook are different skills. A guide to the small number of techniques everything else is built from, why baking is the exception, and how to fix a dish instead of starting again.8 min read
- How to Learn About Law and CitizenshipEveryone is governed by law and most people know almost nothing about how it works. A guide to why the safeguards exist, how to read a rule for its purpose, and what changes when a system is designed to constrain its own operators.8 min read
- How to Learn About SportSport is more interesting when you can see what is actually happening. A guide to reading an unfamiliar game from its scoring, why tactics are visible once you know where to look, and the training science people most reliably ignore.8 min read
Where else to look
The question library is the material itself, unit by unit, with worked examples. The blog covers single topics as short explainers. These guides sit above both: they are about how to approach a subject rather than about any one thing in it.