Study with a notebook
Make a study notebook from your course files, then read each chapter's guide, review its cards every day, take practice exams that mark your work, track your progress and share the notebook.
On this page
A notebook is one course in Learn, made from your course files. Each chapter gets a guide to read, cards to review and practice exams to take, and every one of them cites the pages it comes from. This page covers making a notebook, studying a chapter and sharing a notebook with your workspace.
Before you start: have your course files ready: PDFs, slides, notes. See Files you can upload.
Make a notebook#
- Open Learn and choose New notebook.
- Fill in Name, and optionally Subject and Level (for example bac, master or work). The level sets how the guide and the tutor explain things.
- Under Course files, pick files from your Library, or upload new ones (or drop them on the dialog). Files you add here are kept in your Library, so other notebooks and Ask can use them too.
- Choose Make the notebook.
Ysra reads the files and finds the course's chapters. You can make a notebook without files and add them later with Add files or Change files.
Study a chapter#
Open the notebook and pick a chapter. The notebook has a tab for each kind of study material; hover a button to see roughly what it costs.
| Tab | Button | What you get |
|---|---|---|
| Guide | Write guide | The chapter's key points and definitions, each cited to its page. Rewrite guide makes a new one. |
| Cards | Make cards | Question-and-answer cards for the chapter, added to your daily review. |
| Practice | Practice exam | A practice exam on the chapter, with questions in the style of the course. |
| Progress | — | Where you stand on each chapter. See Track your progress. |
While Ysra writes, you can keep reading: the chapter updates when it's ready.
Review your cards#
Cards come back on a schedule: a card you remember well returns later, a card you miss returns soon. Today's review on the Learn page shows how many cards are due across your notebooks; choose Review now to start.
- Read the question and recall the answer.
- Show the answer: press Space, or tap the card.
- Rate how well you recalled it.
| Rating | Key | When to use it |
|---|---|---|
| Again | 1 | You didn't remember it. |
| Hard | 2 | You remembered it with effort. |
| Good | 3 | You remembered it. |
| Easy | 4 | You knew it at once. |
On a phone or a touch screen, swipe left for Again and right for Good.
Reviewing is free
Reviewing cards uses no credits. In the notebook you can also turn on a reminder every day at the hour you choose, by email too; the reminder is free as well.
Take a practice exam#
- Open a practice exam from the chapter.
- Write your answer under Your answer, step by step. For maths or a diagram, use Add a photo of your work instead of typing it.
- Choose Mark my answer. Marking takes about 10 to 30 seconds.
Ysra marks your answer against the course and shows:
- your score for the question;
- What a full answer covers, so you can see what was missing;
- Look again at, the pages of your course to reread.
If part of a photo can't be read, Ysra says so: try a clearer photo, or type that part.
Ask the tutor#
Choose Ask the tutor in a notebook to open a tutor chat: a chat linked to the notebook that guides you through it with hints, using the notebook's files. Your earlier tutor chats are listed under Your tutor chats. Tutor chats have Learn mode on.
Track your progress#
The notebook's Progress tab shows, for each chapter, how many cards you know, your best practice score, and where you stand:
| Status | Meaning |
|---|---|
| Not started | You haven't studied this chapter yet. |
| Seen | You've read or reviewed it. |
| Practised | You've practised it. |
| Solid | You know it well. |
Share a notebook#
The person who made a notebook can share it with everyone in the workspace.
- Open the notebook.
- Tick Share with this workspace.
- Optionally tick Lock hints first for them. The people you share with then get hints before answers in this notebook, and can't turn that off. You keep full control of your own chats.
People you share a notebook with study it with their own cards, review and progress. If someone leaves the workspace, they lose access to its notebooks.
If it doesn't work#
| What you see | What to do |
|---|---|
| “No chapters found in these files yet.” | Check that the files have text Ysra can read, or add more course files. |
| “Nothing to review today.” | You're up to date. Come back tomorrow, or make Cards for another chapter. |
| “Couldn’t mark this answer. Try again.” | Choose Mark my answer again. |
Related#
- Learn — what Learn is and what it costs.
- Learn a topic — learn something new without course files.
- Files you can upload — the file types and sizes Ysra reads.