Something to point the camera at

Two sheets of practice questions, sized to be photographed off a screen

Trying Pilcrow needs a question in front of the camera, and the first one you have is usually on the laptop you are reading this on. Open this page there, hold the phone up, and tap. That is the whole loop.

Nothing here is loaded into the app. These are ordinary general-knowledge questions printed on a web page. Pilcrow has no more idea what they are than it has about anything else you photograph — which is the point of trying it on them.

The sheets

Take one photograph of a whole sheet. Every question in the frame is read and answered together and the sheet costs one scan, so there is no reason to shoot them one at a time. Fill the frame with the sheet, hold still for a beat, and tap anywhere.

Sheet one · multiple choice

  1. Which gas makes up roughly 78% of the Earth's atmosphere?
    • A. Oxygen
    • B. Carbon dioxide
    • C. Nitrogen
    • D. Argon
  2. A binary search runs over n sorted items. How many comparisons does it make in the worst case?
    • A. n
    • B. n / 2
    • C. log₂n, rounded up
    • D. n log n
  3. Which of these planets orbits the Sun in the least time?
    • A. Mercury
    • B. Venus
    • C. Earth
    • D. Mars

Sheet two · written answers

  1. Why does a solution of a strong acid conduct electricity better than a solution of a weak acid at the same concentration?
  2. A stack and a queue both hold items and hand them back one at a time. What is the difference between them?

What you should see

An answer in large type, with the question, the answer written out and the reasoning underneath it. Tap the card to switch between that detail and the bare answer at full size; swipe to move through the rest of the sheet.

Under each answer is a line naming where it came from. On these sheets it will read "From general knowledge — nothing in your course matched", because you have not loaded a course and there is nothing of yours to cite. That line is doing its job: it is telling you this answer is the kind you have to check yourself. Load your own lecture transcripts and it becomes the lecture and the minute instead, which is the version of Pilcrow worth having. There is more about that on the front page.

Answers are generated and generated answers are sometimes wrong — including on this page, where there is nothing to ground them in. Pilcrow is a study tool, and checking what it tells you is part of using it. You are responsible for following your institution's rules about what help is permitted.

Or use anything else

There is nothing special about this page. A worksheet, a problem set at the back of a textbook, a page of your own handwriting, a question on a second monitor — all of it works the same way, and the camera is built for reading a screen at an angle rather than straight on. If a photograph cannot be read at all, the scan goes back and costs you nothing; Support explains exactly where that line falls.