Guides
Guides are short reference pieces — the things worth reading once and coming back to, rather than working through. They are free on every plan and there is no limit on them.
Finding one
They are grouped by category — strategies, reading, writing, vocabulary, grammar, exam day, listening, speaking — and each carries a level and a reading time.
Unlike lessons, a guide is not six stages you work through, and finishing one is not recorded — nothing tracks whether you have read a guide.
A guide does end by pointing at something to do next: a Practise button into the question type it covers, and an Ask Bandzen Coach button if you would rather ask about it than practise it.
Guides are reached through Learn, filed as Resources
In the app this page is titled "Guides" and lives under Learn. The content team's editor calls the same content "Resources" — a naming difference between the two surfaces, not two different things. See Guides if you are writing them.
Guides against lessons
| Lessons | Guides | |
|---|---|---|
| Shape | Six stages, in order | Prose |
| Leads to practice | Yes, as one of the six stages | Sometimes, one button at the end |
| Progress recorded | Yes — counts as a study day | No |
| Grouped by | Module, then depth | Category and level |
If you are working through a technique, you want a lesson. If you want to check something before an exam, you want a guide.