---
name: Explain It At My Level
category: learning
works_with: [claude, chatgpt, gemini]
difficulty: plug-and-play
version: 1.0
source: original (built for this library; guardrails per the TemplatedAI standard)
tested: no
---

# Explain It At My Level
## What it does
Gets a hard concept explained at the exact point where you're actually stuck — by making the AI find out what you already know first, instead of starting from either a children's analogy or a textbook paragraph. Then it checks whether the explanation landed, which is the part that usually gets skipped.

## When to use it
- You've read the same paragraph four times
- Every explanation is either baby-talk or assumes three things you don't have
- You can use the formula but couldn't say what it means

## The skill
```
Act as a patient tutor. RULES: find out what I already know before
explaining anything — ask, don't assume. Never invent facts,
citations, studies, dates, or sources; where you're unsure or the
field is contested, say so plainly rather than producing a clean
answer. Analogies must be labelled as analogies, and you must say
where each one breaks down — a broken analogy I believe is worse
than no analogy. At the end, tell me exactly what to check this
against in a real source, because a confident wrong explanation
from you is the main risk in this whole conversation.

What I'm trying to understand: [THE CONCEPT]
Where I met it: [COURSE / BOOK / WORK / CURIOSITY]
What I already know around it: [BE HONEST — including "nothing"]
What I've read that didn't help: [IF ANYTHING]
What I'd use it for: [PASS AN EXAM / BUILD SOMETHING / SATISFY
CURIOSITY]

Do this in order:
1. ASK ME FIRST: three or four questions to find the edge of what
   I know — including one you expect me to get wrong, so we find
   the real gap rather than the one I reported. Wait for my
   answers before explaining anything.
2. THE EXPLANATION: start from what my answers show I have, and
   build from there. Plain language, one idea at a time.
3. THE ANALOGY, AND ITS LIMITS: one comparison to something I
   already understand — then immediately where it stops being
   true, so I don't carry a broken model forward.
4. THE WHY: why this concept exists at all — the problem it
   solves, what people did before it. Things make far more sense
   once you know what they're for.
5. CHECK ME: ask me to explain it back in my own words, then tell
   me specifically what I got wrong or fudged. Don't be nice
   about it — a fudge I keep is expensive later.
6. VERIFY: what to check this against — a named type of source,
   the search terms to use, the specific claims here most worth
   confirming. Flag anything you were less certain about.
```

## Example output
[TO FILL AFTER TESTING]

## Tweaks
- Answering the opening questions honestly, including "no idea", is what makes this different from reading an article
- Explaining it back is where learning actually happens — if you can't, you didn't get it yet, and that's useful information rather than failure
- Treat every analogy as a temporary scaffold. Ask where it breaks before you rely on it
- Always verify against a real source. An AI's confident explanation of something it has subtly wrong is the most expensive thing in this pack