History, research and data

What holds these lists together

These lists are not about a subject but about a question: how sure is a statement? A source, a sample and a memory are three kinds of evidence, and each has its own words for «we do not know exactly» — l’hypothèse, la marge d’erreur, le biais. An English reader meets one trap early: une expérience is both an experience and an experiment, and only the sentence says which. Les résultats de l’expérience come from a laboratory, not from a life. Without these words every guess reads as a fact — in French as in English, only without your noticing.

For example: la perception (perception), la source primaire (the primary source), la moyenne pondérée (the weighted mean), l’interruption d’études (the break in studies), le perfectionnement professionnel (continuing professional development), la période orbitale (the orbital period)

Spread across the levels

The category runs across the levels — it is an area, not a difficulty. If you practise it, you can also choose a level at the top of the practice page and then get only the part that sits there.