What's the bar exam like anyway?

The Federalist Papers are a unique window into the minds of the men who drafted the Constitution and founded the United States. This series of 85 essays, originally published at the time of the raging debate over ratification, make the case for a stronger national government and urge the adoption of the Constitution. This is one of the most important documents in American history, revealing what the Founding Fathers thought about human nature, civil society, and the relationship between government and liberty.

When you hear the word “bias,” you may think of a conscious form of prejudice—but the most potent biases are actually subconscious. These implicit biases are normal neurological responses to the culture you grow up in. In the United States, everyone encounters and encodes antiblack bias to some degree, even in black communities. This racial bias doesn’t just influence how you make decisions—it determines what you notice in your environment and what becomes invisible. And in high-stakes situations like police encounters, the consequences of racial bias can be devastating.

In this guide, we’ll discuss how your brain creates bias; how that bias impacts every area of your life, from where you live to how you post online; and, most importantly, how to combat implicit bias to create a fairer world for everyone. We’ll also compare Dr. Eberhardt’s research on racial bias to other popular books on racism such as How to Be an Antiracist and White Fragility.

Hillbilly Elegy: A Memoir of a Family and Culture in Crisis examines the spiritual and social decline of the Appalachian white working class through the life story of its author, JD Vance. Growing up in a post-industrial Ohio town, Vance encountered the symptoms of community and familial dysfunction—drug and alcohol abuse, unstable marriages, lack of education, and evasion of hard work—that underscore the failing values of the culture from which he came.

Although Vance eventually escapes the poverty and dysfunction of his roots, attending college and Yale Law School, he finds that even economic mobility can never permanently erase the social markers of his hillbilly upbringing.

Getting good grades in college opens up your world: It can help you get into better graduate schools and even get better jobs. But how do you do well in college? Most students assume they must study endlessly to do well. However, in How to Become a Straight-A Student, professor and productivity expert Cal Newport argues that there's a better way: With the right study techniques, you can ace your college courses with just a few hours of studying each day.

In this guide, we’ll share those study techniques. You’ll learn how to plan your day effectively, combat procrastination, ace all your exams, and write fantastic papers. Along the way, we'll explore how Newport fleshes out these ideas further in his blog posts and his other books, and we'll examine how his recommendations compare to those of other academic experts.

The Federalist Papers are a unique window into the minds of the men who drafted the Constitution and founded the United States. This series of 85 essays, originally published at the time of the raging debate over ratification, make the case for a stronger national government and urge the adoption of the Constitution. This is one of the most important documents in American history, revealing what the Founding Fathers thought about human nature, civil society, and the relationship between government and liberty.

We like to think that we’re intelligent, rational beings who generally make good decisions. However, psychologist Daniel Kahneman says that in reality, the human mind is hasty, imprecise, and lazy. In Thinking, Fast and Slow, Kahneman explains how we make decisions, why those decisions are often wrong, and how we can work around our natural shortcomings to make better decisions in the future.

We’ll begin by describing the “fast” and “slow” systems of thought that Kahneman identifies. Next, we’ll go over the ways our thinking tends to be sloppy and biased, and why that happens so regularly. Finally, we’ll examine Kahneman’s research into happiness, and how a better understanding of ourselves can help support our overall well-being.

In our commentary, we’ll explore some evolutionary origins of cognitive biases, look at how the biases Kahneman highlights relate to additional biases, and compare Kahneman’s insights to those from other psychologists, such as Malcolm Gladwell and Barbara Oakley.

If you’re planning to start a business, The Unfair Advantage is the guidebook you need to achieve success. Entrepreneurs Ash Ali and Hasan Kubba tell you how to realize your entrepreneurial dreams by finding and using your unfair advantages, the qualities or conditions that give you an edge over competitors. Ali and Kubba explain that everyone has unfair advantages, and you need to use yours if you want to succeed in the ruthless domain of startups.

Drawing on over 20 years of experience building startups and coaching entrepreneurs, Ali and Kubba describe the mindset you must adopt and the steps you must take to achieve startup success—from identifying a viable business idea to building a winning team. In this guide, we’ll examine Ali and Kubba’s tips for finding and applying your unfair advantages. We’ll also compare the authors’ ideas to those of other business leaders—for instance, ideas from Brian Tracy in Goals! and Grant Cardone in The 10X Rule—and share additional steps you can take to achieve startup success.

In a tight labor market, the stakes are high for companies to attract and hire the right people. While outlandish interview tactics such as brainteasers, making applicants dance, and getting applicants drunk have mostly fallen out of favor, some employers are still disrespecting candidates in other ways: endless interview cycles, ghosting, and appropriating work that’s completed for demonstration projects.

American healthcare is commonly known to be in a deplorable state, costing 18% of GDP while underperforming in quality among developed nations. Changing the situation systemically also seems intractable—passing new regulation is a political landmine, and costs continue to rise without a clear winning strategy.

American Sickness unpacks how US healthcare got to this state. It examines the competing interests of the major blocs in healthcare - hospitals and doctors, pharmaceuticals and devices, and insurers. Written by a Harvard-trained doctor and New York Times reporter, this book clarifies how deeply entrenched the interests are and why it’s so difficult to change anything.

Advanced Placement (AP) courses are designed to give high school students a head start on a college degree. But critics have called the program a “racket,” and recently, Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis criticized a proposed AP African American studies course as biased. Here’s a look at how the program works.

In his classic 1962 book Capitalism and Freedom, Nobel Prize-winning economist Milton Friedman argues that a society cannot maintain political freedom without a robust commitment to free-market capitalism—and that for capitalism to function best, it must be free of government interference. It is hard to overstate the extent to which Friedman’s once-controversial ideas have triumphed. Over the past 40 years, governments across the world have moved to market-based solutions by reducing marginal tax rates, eliminating tariffs, privatizing public monopolies, and introducing choice in public education. Some might disagree about the effects of Friedman’s ideas—but no one can deny their influence.

Elite colleges and universities in the US typically accept less than 10% of applicants, but their influence stretches far beyond this small group. In Excellent Sheep, author and former Yale professor William Deresiewicz makes the case that these institutions’ influence is negative. He argues that they’re so selective and profit-oriented that they contribute to social inequality and deprive students of high-quality learning.

In this guide, we’ll examine two problems with elite US colleges and universities and explain why Deresiewicz claims they harm both society and students. Then, we’ll explore solutions by describing how governments, schools, and parents can collectively overhaul US higher education—and how today’s students can make the most of their college years in the meantime. As we explore these ideas, we’ll fact-check the author’s claims by providing both supportive evidence and counterexamples. We’ll also discuss ways in which some elite US schools have changed since the publication of Excellent Sheep in 2014. Furthermore, we’ll supplement the author’s ideas with actionable steps.