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Lesson 2 of 3 in What This Is · 2 min left in this chapter

How a Lesson Works

The interactive pieces you will meet in every course, met by using them.

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A lesson here is not a wall of text. It is built from pieces, and most of them ask something of you — because you remember what you did far better than what you read. This lesson is made of those pieces, so you can meet each one by using it.

Predict before you are told

The simplest one asks you to guess before it explains. Guessing first — even wrongly — makes the answer stick, so this appears constantly.

What do you think happens to your XP if you get a question wrong?

Two kinds of question

Some questions are just for thinking — unlimited tries, worth nothing, there to check your understanding. You met one of those last lesson. Others are graded: answer correctly and you earn XP, once.

Question+20 XP

This is a graded question — notice the "+XP" badge above. Which of these does a graded question do that a plain check does not?

Sign in to answer and earn XP.

Reading closely

Some pieces are for looking at rather than answering. This one — an annotation — points at parts of something so the interesting bit is labelled where it happens.

Course  ->  Chapter  ->  Lesson
Course  ->  Exam     ->  Credential
  1. Line 1The path through learning: a course is chapters, a chapter is lessons. You are in the "Introduction" course, "What This Is" chapter, right now.
  2. Line 2The path to proof: finish a course, pass its exam, earn a signed credential anyone can verify. More on that in the last chapter.

A compare block puts two things side by side — the core device for showing a mistake next to its fix, which you will see constantly in the security courses.

A lesson that bores

- Ten paragraphs in a row
- Tells you the answer before you have wondered
- Nothing to type, click, or predict

A lesson that teaches

- A paragraph, then something to do
- Asks first, explains second
- You leave having done the thing, not read about it

The platform enforces the left column out of existence: a lesson with too many paragraphs in a row fails to build. That is why every course feels like this one.

Drills

Two pieces make you assemble something. A fill-in-the-blank drills a single line by leaving gaps you complete.

The command that lists files, including hidden ones. Fill the gap.

ls
Show the answerls -a

And a sort asks you to put things in the right buckets — good for "which of these is safe and which is not".

Sort each into whether the platform can see it or never does.

  • Your username
  • Your XP and streak
  • Your email address
  • Any third-party tracking cookie
Show the answer
  • The platform stores thisYour username, Your XP and streak
  • The platform never has thisYour email address, Any third-party tracking cookie

Tip

That is most of the toolkit. The one piece left is the best one — a real terminal you type into — and that is the whole next chapter.