Notes from the whiteboard.
Study guides, exam tips, and plain-English explainers for Ontario math, physics, chemistry, and biology, written the way we teach.
A Calculus exam checklist that actually helps
Calculus covers a lot of ground, so studying can feel like staring at a wall. Here's the short list of what shows up on almost every final, and the few things that quietly decide your grade.
Read →The calm week before exams: a study plan
A simple, humane schedule for the seven days before finals. It's built around sleep and practice problems, not all-nighters, because the all-nighter has never once worked.
Read →Advanced Functions, Calculus, or Data Management? Picking Grade 12 math
The three Grade 12 university maths do different jobs, and they're not interchangeable. Which ones you need comes down to where you're applying. Here's the plain-English version.
Read →How to study for a Grade 11 Functions test
Grade 11 Functions is where a lot of students first feel math get hard. Usually it isn't the ideas. It's that the studying method that used to work just stopped.
Read →How to read a chemistry word problem like a tutor
Most lost marks in Grade 11 and 12 Chemistry aren't chemistry mistakes. They're reading mistakes. Here's the small habit that fixes it.
Read →Five biology diagrams worth memorizing
Grade 12 Biology is a mountain of vocabulary. A handful of diagrams carry most of it, so if you can draw these, the words tend to attach themselves.
Read →Ontario's de-streamed Grade 9 math: what changed, and how to do well
Grade 9 math is now one course for everyone. I think that's a good thing, and there are a couple of things worth knowing so the jump to Grade 10 goes smoothly.
Read →For parents: helping a kid who 'isn't a math person'
There's no such thing as a math brain and a non-math brain. Here's what actually helps when your child has decided they're bad at it.
Read →Physics is mostly free-body diagrams (and how to draw them)
If forces in Grade 11 or 12 Physics feel like guessing, it's almost always the diagram. Get this one habit right and the equations basically write themselves.
Read →Why cramming doesn't stick: spacing and retrieval
There's a lot of folklore about studying. But two findings from memory research are about as settled as it gets, and they explain most of the gap between students who keep it and students who forget it by Friday.
Read →When an AI almost medalled at the Math Olympiad
Back in 2024, a pair of AI systems scored at silver-medal level on the International Mathematical Olympiad. It's a striking result, and a useful reminder of what math class is really for.
Read →A number with 41 million digits: the new largest prime
In late 2024 the record for the largest known prime finally fell after six years. A quick look at what it is, and why people keep hunting for these.
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