Study playbook
How to actually get better on Tali
This platform recognises one kind of knowing: you get the same point right when it is asked a different way.
Every mechanism here serves that sentence. Once you have it, the rest of the design explains itself.
Three things on your first visit
Ten minutes, all in. The third is the one people skip, and skipping it leaves the daily amount with nothing to compute from.
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1
Upload material you are actually being examined on
Textbook, slides, a paper your teacher handed out. Tali breaks it into knowledge points, each carrying the sentence it came from — the citation is there so you can check it did not invent anything.
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2
Read the notes before answering anything
Notes sit in the middle column; click any source on the left to see its notes. Knowing how many points this material holds is worth more than an hour of drilling on day one.
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3
Set an exam date
Without one there is no daily amount — that number is the points you have left divided by the days you have left. You can change the date whenever.
One thing a day: press Practice
You do not have to work out which part needs you today. Practice serves questions in a fixed order:
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1
Reviews that are due
Wrong before, scheduled for today
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2
Wrong answers not yet cleared
Not due yet, still owed
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3
Questions you have not seen
New ground
So paying the debt before breaking new ground happens on its own. The only decision left to you is whether you practise today.
Why is a correct answer not mastered yet?
This is the most confusing thing here, and the biggest difference between Tali and a question bank.
Getting a question right that you have already seen proves you remember that question. It does not prove you hold the knowledge point. So it counts as half a step, and the point moves to Practise again — not yet Mastered.
To turn it Mastered you have to get it right once more asked a different way: another question, a variant that reframes the problem, something Tali puts to you mid-conversation, or a question asked out loud in voice — every entrance counts, and they all count the same. That is what the False confidence bucket is for — someone who was right once and wrong on the next framing is the most dangerous person in the exam room, because they do not know what they are missing.
If one correct answer counted as mastery, nobody would ever land in that bucket.
Where the second chance comes from
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Just press Practice again
The same knowledge point has other questions, and practice will serve you one. Nothing to set up — this is the cheapest route.
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Press "Test me on a new scenario" on the readiness page
Every point under Practise again, False confidence and Known gap carries that button. It writes a reframed question on the spot and drops it into today's practice.
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Press "Test me on this" in chat
Tali asks you there and then, and tells you what your answer bought you. Saying it out loud in voice counts the same.
Talking to Tali is also being tested
The panel on the right of a notebook is not a help desk. Tali asks you things while it explains, and a correct answer there carries exactly the weight of a correct answer in Practice — both are one piece of evidence. Get it wrong and the point joins the review queue and comes back on a schedule.
Voice is the same ledger: an answer you say out loud is filed alongside the ones you type and the ones you drill. So when you do not feel like drilling, go and talk. It counts the same.
Reading the five states
The readiness page sorts your knowledge points into five. Read them in this order:
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False confidence
Right once, wrong when it was asked a different way. Deal with this one first — you think you know it.
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Known gap
Asked, answered wrong, and never right before that. At least you know where you stand, which makes it safer than the one above.
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Practise again
Right once, on your own. Get a different framing right and it flips to Mastered — one answer away, the cheapest bucket on the page.
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Not started
Not practised and not asked about in conversation.
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Mastered
Right on two different framings of the question. This is the one that counts as progress.
Where the progress lives
Two places, the same thing at two grains:
- The chip on the notebook's title row
- One number: 27 left. It counts points you have not touched plus points the review book is owed, deduplicated. Once both gates open it turns into Closed.
- The bar at the top of the readiness page
- A progress bar and N of M verified. The numerator only counts points you got right on two different framings — so it climbs more slowly than you expect, and every step it takes is real. A line underneath breaks out how many are consolidating and how many are untested.
The five tabs below it break M open: verified, consolidating, untested, false confidence, known gap. The five counts add up to M.
The mistake book is the spaced review
Only questions you get wrong join this queue — wrong in practice, or caught out talking to Tali in text or voice. Questions you get right the first time never enter.
Once in, it comes back the next day. Each correct answer widens the gap; a wrong one sends it back to tomorrow.
Wrong in Practice
A question catches you out
Caught out by Tali
In text or voice, the one you missed
Mistake book · scheduled by interval
There is one review queue, not a second copy of your questions
Press Practice in this notebook
These mistakes are included automatically, with due reviews served first.
Open the Spaced Review page
See mistakes from every notebook when you want to clear subjects together.
Correct → the next gap grows
Wrong → it returns tomorrow
Gaps after a correct answer
1 day → 6 days → 15 days → 38 days → 95 days → …
You do not need to visit the review page for this. Inside a notebook, Practice already serves due reviews first. That page is the cross-notebook version, for clearing everything at once when you are not working in one particular notebook.
What counts as done
A material closes when both gates are open at once:
Coverage ≥ 90%
The share of this material's knowledge points you have touched
Review debt ≤ 15%
How much of what you owe is still outstanding
The slack is deliberate: nobody should be grinding the last two stubborn points the night before the exam, which is exactly when the anxiety is worst.
It can come undone
Upload new material and coverage drops; leave the reviews alone for a while and the debt climbs back. Closure is not a badge you keep once you have it — it is a judgement about where you stand right now, which is why Tali tells you when it slips.
In the last two weeks, the system narrows
Once your exam date is within 14 days, the daily review serves only that course and sets the other notebooks aside. Revising a different subject costs more in this window than it does the rest of the year.
If you remember one thing
Getting the same question right twice does not count. Get it right once more asked a different way — that is when the bucket flips — then clear what you owe.
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