DIMENSION 1
Reason.
The Reason dimension puts you through a set of questions designed to test whether you can think through a topic from a variety of angles. Depending on the topic, questions are drawn from seven types: causal reasoning, mechanistic reasoning, application and transfer, comparison and contrast, limitations and boundary conditions, conceptual significance, and common misconceptions.
KnowThree may ask you to explain causes and effects, walk through how something actually works, apply it to new situations, or articulate where it breaks down and doesn't hold. It also asks you to explore how a concept compares to related ideas, why it matters in the first place, and where people most commonly get it wrong. Questions are carefully selected based on what best reveals true understanding for that specific topic.
DIMENSION 2
Recall.
The Recall dimension tests whether you have a firm grasp of the foundational facts surrounding a topic. Every subject comes with a core set of facts, the who, what, when, and where, that form the basis of any real understanding. Without accurate factual recall, deeper reasoning has nothing to stand on.
KnowThree presents a short set of multiple choice questions drawn directly from your source material, designed to verify that you have the essential facts right. But this is not simple rote testing. Each wrong answer option is a diagnostic distractor, carefully constructed to reflect real misconceptions rather than random incorrect choices. This means that when you select a wrong answer, KnowThree doesn't just mark it incorrect. It identifies the specific misconception behind your response, giving you a precise picture of where your factual understanding breaks down.
DIMENSION 3
Explain.
The Explain dimension asks you to do something deceptively simple: explain the topic out loud, in your own words, as if you were teaching it to someone who knows nothing about it. No jargon, no borrowed phrases, no hiding behind terminology. Just a clear, coherent explanation that demonstrates genuine understanding.
This dimension is rooted in the Feynman Technique, based on the principle that the ultimate test of understanding is the ability to explain something simply. KnowThree takes this seriously.
Writing can be edited and rehearsed, but speaking forces you to draw on what you actually understand in real time. That is why this dimension is audio based. Your spoken explanation reveals the true shape of your understanding in a way that typed responses rarely do. KnowThree analyzes your explanation for clarity, depth, accuracy, and completeness, giving you detailed feedback on how well you were able to communicate the concept and where your explanation fell short.
ROOTED IN ASSESSMENT SCIENCE.
KnowThree's approach draws from principles of summative assessment and 'assessment for learning', optimizing for validity, ensuring we measure what actually matters. The goal is not to test what is easy to test, but to establish whether true comprehension is firmly in place.