Why do textbook explanations make no sense?
Complex academic texts often lack intuitive explanations, forcing learners to memorize formulas without understanding the underlying concepts. This lack of clear foundational reasoning makes it impossible to build real intuition for the subject without first taking more advanced courses.
What people tried
Every workaround mentioned in the threads below. We haven’t tested any of them — and nobody here is claiming they worked.
- 1Reading alternative resource types like interactive websites, video series, or non-technical books inspired by authors like Nassim Taleb
- 2Using companion books that focus heavily on exercises or short reference guides
- 3Using reference treatises like Bittker and Eustice
- 4Suffering through the class to just get a passing grade
- 5Using LLMs to explain the 'why' behind tax rules
- 6Looking at actual tax schedules and doing multiple-choice questions
In their words
Unedited, most upvoted first, each linked to the thread it came from.
“I don't understand anything and it's very very boring.”source ↗
“First year taking financial accounting, and I feel like this textbook is driving me insane.”source ↗
“I've got a Bachelors and two Masters degrees in CS/Math, but yet I feel Probability and Statistics is my greatest weakness. I just cannot grok it / build an intuition for it, and believe me, I've tried.”source ↗
“something I kept running into is that you can't really unlock the intuition for many concepts without taking more advanced courses.”source ↗
Where this came up
People with this problem also raised
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- 3Why can't I understand my accounting teacher in class?
- 2Why is it so hard to learn the accounting theory behind daily work?