---
title: Learning guide
description: A short guide to using Socrates well.
canonical: https://topodrive.top/guide
last-updated: 2026-08-22
---

# Learning guide

> A short guide to using Socrates well.

## Start where you are

Begin with the question you actually have — even if it is half-formed. Socrates is built to handle incomplete thoughts. The tutor will ask before it answers, and the first answer is often a clarifying question.

## Use the recall queue

When something in a session feels important, save it. The recall queue brings saved moments back at the right interval — a few hours, a day, a week. The point is not to test yourself, it is to find the moment when the idea becomes yours.

## Map the territory

Socrates maintains a knowledge map across your sessions. When the tutor says "this is related to what we discussed last week", it is the map speaking. Read the relationships, not just the answers.

## Explain it back

The single most reliable signal of understanding is the ability to explain something in your own framing. Socrates listens for the seam — the place where your explanation becomes vague — and offers a follow-up question at exactly that point.

## Practice retrieval, not recognition

Recognition feels like understanding. Retrieval tests actually build it. Use exam mode at the end of a study block. The questions are short, the gap between knowing and not-knowing is where the learning lives.

## When to switch tutors

If you find yourself explaining the tutor's answers back to it, you are doing too much work. If you find yourself copying the tutor's language instead of your own, you are not doing enough. Socrates rewards durable effort — the kind of effort you bring to something you actually want to understand.

## See also

- [Pricing](https://topodrive.top/pricing.md)
- [About](https://topodrive.top/about.md)
- [Research](https://topodrive.top/research)
- [OpenAPI](https://topodrive.top/openapi.json)