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Learning prompt · Built for Apollo

Learn a topic and get quizzed on it

Explains something at three levels of detail, then questions you on it and reports which specific part you did not actually have.

The prompt

Teach me this, then find out what I did not get.

Topic: [WHAT YOU WANT TO UNDERSTAND]
Why I need it: [E.G. AN EXAM, A CODE REVIEW NEXT WEEK, CURIOSITY]
What I already know that is related: [BE HONEST — THIS SETS THE STARTING POINT]
Where I have got stuck before: [IF ANYWHERE]

Work in two phases.

PHASE ONE — explain at three depths, in one message:
- THE SHAPE: what this is and what problem it exists to solve, in about five sentences. No jargon.
- THE WORKING PARTS: how it actually works, with the mechanism and the vocabulary I will meet elsewhere. Roughly three paragraphs.
- THE EDGES: where the simple version I just read is wrong or incomplete, what the common misconceptions are, and what it connects to.

PHASE TWO — then stop and ask me six questions, one at a time, waiting for each answer:
- two that check I can state it back
- two that require applying it to a situation you have not mentioned
- one asking me to predict what happens in a case you have not described
- one asking why it is done this way rather than an obvious alternative

Do not tell me the answer before I respond, and do not ask the next question until I have answered.

After the last one, tell me:
- which specific ideas I have and which I only have the words for
- the exact point where my understanding first went wrong, if it did
- what to study next, in order

Be direct in the assessment. If an answer was wrong, say wrong and say why. Do not soften it.
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Replace the outlined parts before running

  • [WHAT YOU WANT TO UNDERSTAND]
  • [E.G. AN EXAM, A CODE REVIEW NEXT WEEK, CURIOSITY]
  • [BE HONEST — THIS SETS THE STARTING POINT]
  • [IF ANYWHERE]

When to use this

The reliable illusion in learning is that following an explanation feels like understanding it. It is not the same thing and it does not feel different from the inside — which is why people re-read a chapter, feel it click, and then cannot use the idea a week later. The only thing that separates them is being asked to produce something rather than recognise it.

The three depths exist because a single explanation is always pitched wrong: too simple and you get an analogy you cannot use, too detailed and the vocabulary arrives before the shape it is describing. Reading the same thing three times at increasing resolution is close to how the idea actually settles. The layer people skip is the third one, and it is the one that matters most, because the simplified version you were given is wrong in specific ways and knowing which ways is a large part of knowing the subject.

Phase two is the point of the prompt. Four of the six questions are about applying the idea somewhere it was not explained, which is the only kind of question that can distinguish having an idea from having its vocabulary. The final assessment is instructed to be blunt for the same reason.

How to use it

  1. Be accurate about what you already know

    This sets where the explanation starts. Overstate it and you get an answer built on foundations you do not have; understate it and you read three paragraphs you already knew.

  2. Answer the questions before looking anything up

    A wrong answer produced from memory locates the gap exactly. A correct answer produced by scrolling up locates nothing, and the final assessment will be built on it.

  3. Write 'I do not know' when you do not

    Guessing plausibly is what makes the assessment useless — it cannot distinguish your guess from your knowledge. An honest blank is the most informative answer you can give.

  4. Keep the assessment, discard the explanation

    The explanation you can get anywhere. The list of what you only had the words for is specific to you, and it is what the next study session should be aimed at.

Variations

For something you half-know already

I have been using this for a while without properly understanding it. Find the holes.

Topic: [SUBJECT]
How I currently think about it: [WRITE YOUR MENTAL MODEL, EVEN IF YOU SUSPECT IT IS WRONG]
What I can do with it in practice: [DETAIL]

First, tell me where my stated model is wrong or incomplete — specifically, quoting the part of what I wrote that is off.
Then explain only the parts I got wrong, not the whole topic.
Then ask me four questions targeting exactly those parts, one at a time, waiting for each answer.
Then tell me whether the correction took.

Do not re-explain what I already had right.
Try this variation

Understand a paper or a spec you have to read

Help me get through this properly rather than skimming it.

The document: [PASTE, OR NAME IT PRECISELY]
My background in the field: [BE HONEST]
Why I am reading it: [WHAT YOU NEED TO DO WITH IT]

Produce:
1. WHAT IT CLAIMS — the central claim in three sentences, separated from the framing around it.
2. WHAT YOU NEED TO KNOW FIRST to read it — concepts, in order, with one line each.
3. THE ARGUMENT, section by section, in plain language.
4. WHAT IS ASSERTED WITHOUT SUPPORT, and what the evidence actually establishes as opposed to what the abstract says it does.
5. WHAT I SHOULD BE ABLE TO ANSWER once I have read it — five questions.

Then ask me those five questions, one at a time, after I have read it.
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Where it falls short

  • For fast-moving or contested subjectsWhere the field genuinely disagrees, the explanation will present one settled account. Ask what the disagreements are and check the third layer against a current source.
  • For skills rather than knowledgePlaying, writing, and speaking are improved by doing them and getting feedback. Being questioned about technique is not practice, and it feels enough like progress to substitute for it.
  • When you need to be certain the content is correctConfident explanations of subtly wrong detail are the standard failure, and this format is designed to make the whole thing feel authoritative. For anything load-bearing, verify against a real source.

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