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Try Yourself


 

If you went to a CBSE school, you probably remember the "Golden Guide" books. Back in 1999, this book was our lifeline for Math. It was basically a cheat sheet. It had all the likely questions and, best of all, the answers. It was a safety net. You didn't really have to struggle with a problem; you just had to look up the pattern.

The guide had a specific system. It would solve two or three similar questions step-by-step. But to save space, or maybe to actually teach us something, the fourth question wouldn't have an answer. Instead, in bold letters, it just said: "Try Yourself."

I remember a funny unit test from those days involving one of my friends. He relied way too heavily on the Golden Guide.

There was a question in the test that came straight from the book. Ironically, it was the exact question where the guide didn't give a solution. My friend trusted the book more than his own brain. He didn't solve the math. He didn't write a number.

He just wrote: "Try Yourself."

When our math teacher was grading the papers, he stopped. He was totally confused. He called the student to his desk, holding the answer sheet.

"What does this mean?" the teacher asked, pointing to the answer.

Here is the funny part: my friend didn't realise he had made a mistake. He looked the teacher in the eye and argued that "Try Yourself" was the answer. He thought it was some math term he had memorized but didn't understand. It was hilarious, but also a little scary.

I’ve been thinking about that story a lot lately, especially when I use ChatGPT or Claude.

In many ways, AI is just the ultimate Golden Guide. It has an answer for everything. It solves the first, second, and third question. But unlike those old books, AI rarely says "Try Yourself." It just gives you the answer.

We are living through a massive version of that Class 8 unit test right now. We have a tool smarter than any book, but we risk becoming exactly like my friend.

We copy code without knowing how it works. We copy emails without checking how they sound. Some folks really think that just by using Claude, they can graduate with Cum Laude. We ask for summaries of articles we haven't read. We are so happy to have the answer that we stop caring about how we got there.

The tool isn't the problem. Relying on it blindly is. My friend failed not because he used a guide, but because he stopped thinking. He treated "Try Yourself" as just another fact to memorize.

With AI, the line between a "real answer" and a "made-up one" can be blurry. If the AI confidently tells us something wrong, how many of us are just going to write it down and argue with the teacher?

The Golden Guide was right. At some point, the spoon-feeding has to stop. To actually learn math, coding, or writing, you have to stare at a blank page and struggle a little bit.

AI is amazing. It can solve the first three problems for you in seconds. But for the fourth one?

Do us all a favor: Try Yourself.

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