How lessons work: the road, energy and paper cash

How does a lesson on Trenches work, and what are energy, paper cash and day streaks for? This guide answers both, on a computer and a phone. After it, you can play a level, plan your energy, earn paper cash (practice money with no real value), skip ahead and keep your streak.

What is the road?

Each course is one road: short lessons, called levels, in one order. A level takes about 5 minutes and opens once the levels before it are done. Levels come in units of 8 to 13, and units make up sections.

The level you are on wears a tag: START HERE in a unit you have not begun, CONTINUE once you have finished a level in it.

Click a level to open its card. It shows where the level sits, such as Level 3 of 8, the paper cash it pays the first time you finish it, its number of questions, and Start. A finished level shows Review instead.

Each unit ends with two special levels. The second to last is its Unit check, marked with three stars. It checks what the unit taught, with a title such as Unit check: Chart Hunt. The last is the unit's review level, such as Unit 3 review.

Easy to mix up: Review and a review level. Review replays a finished level for free and pays nothing. A review level is a new level: it uses energy and pays like any other.

A chest marks the halfway point of each unit. On the website it is only a marker and pays nothing.

A locked level says why. Inside an open section it reads "Finish the levels above to unlock." When the whole section is closed, it names the section to finish first.

The banner above the road names your section and unit. Its Map button opens the course map: the six courses with their sections and units. Use it to switch course or go to a unit in an open section.

On a computer, a card under the road names the next unit. Its Guidebook button shows what that unit teaches and lists its levels. Below it, UP NEXT names the next section.

Some Stocks and Forex sections are still being written. The course map marks them In the works, and the road skips them.

Play a level, step by step

Story cards come first, each teaching one idea. Press Next to read on, then Start the check.
Answer the questions, usually six to eight: pick an answer and press Check answer.
Read the feedback and press Continue, or Finish level after the last question.
A miss never ends a level. It comes back at the end of the check, under "Fix the ones you missed", until you get it right.
The finish shows your paper cash, how many you got right on the first try and your day streak. Continue opens your next level.

On a computer, a panel beside each question holds Words in this question, Show a hint and Ask Toro, the AI coach. Asking Toro needs a free account. A hint teaches the idea, never the answer, and shows its price first. On a phone the same help sits in a row under the question: Hint, a words button and Question.

On a computer, keys 1 to 9 pick an answer, Enter checks and continues, and Escape pauses.

Your first tries also build your Trading IQ, one number for what you know and how you trade. From lessons, only first answers count, and a first try after a hint counts half. It shows on your profile after 12 first-try answers. Trading IQ: what it measures and how it moves explains it.

What is energy?

Energy is your daily allowance for new questions. On the website:

Each new question uses 1 energy. Retries and reviews of finished levels are free.
You get 30 a day, back to 30 at local midnight, never above 30.
There are no top ups to refill it early, and no reward adds energy.
Answers in the first unit of every course, and in the Memecoin starter (seven units for memecoin beginners), use none.
A hint costs 1 energy once per question, even in a free unit, and nothing on a retry or a review.
Elite, the paid membership, has unlimited energy, and its hints cost $100 of paper cash.

Say each level asks six new questions: 30 energy then covers five levels. Click Energy at the top of the page for today's count and when it refills.

Run out mid-level and the screen says "Out of energy." It tells you when your next 30 arrive and adds: "Finished levels are always free to review." Your checked questions are saved, and once energy is back, Continue this question picks up where you stopped.

What does a level pay?

The first time you finish a level, it pays paper cash:

$5 for each question right on the first try
$5 more for each run of three right first tries in a row
$25 for a perfect level, every answer right first try
$20 to finish, or $40 for a Unit check

A level's own pay stops at $100. Completing a unit adds $150 on top, and completing a section adds $1,000.

Say you get all six questions of a level right on the first try. It pays $85: $30 in first tries, $10 for two runs of three, $25 for perfect and $20 to finish.

Levels also teach key words, the terms a lesson explains. A word joins your dictionary once you meet it in three lessons. It can join sooner: meet it once, then answer a question on its meaning right the first time, without a hint. Each word that joins pays $5, and the finish lists it under "New in your dictionary".

Lesson cash never counts as trading profit. It lands in your paper cash as a deposit, cash added to your account.

Say you start with $10,000, earn $85 from a level and make $50 on a closed paper trade. Your paper cash is then $10,135, but your profit is $50. Your paper account: cash, positions and profit explains why.

Can I skip ahead?

Already know the material? A jump test skips ahead:

JUMP HERE? on a locked unit's heading tests you into that unit.
When the next section is closed, UP NEXT offers a button such as Jump to Section 2 on a computer, or JUMP HERE? on a phone.
On the course map, a locked section offers Take the mastery test.

The test draws on the levels it skips: up to 8 questions for a unit, up to 10 for a section. No hints, one miss allowed, and the second miss ends it. It uses no energy and pays no paper cash, but its answers count toward your Trading IQ.

Pass, and the skipped levels count as done: you can review them, but they pay nothing later. Miss twice, and it names the units to review; Try the test again asks other questions.

How does a day streak work?

Your day streak counts the days in a row you finish a level or a review, by your local day.

A streak freeze covers one missed day automatically. You start with two, and each new streak tops you back up to two. You earn one each time your streak reaches 7, 14, 21 days and so on, and keep it if you have room: a free account holds two, Elite three. Freezes are never sold.

Say you hold one freeze and miss Saturday. The freeze covers Saturday, and your streak carries on.

From 6 PM, with no level done today and no freeze held, the app warns: "At risk tonight: one level keeps it."

Lost a streak of 2 days or more? Once a month, you can earn it back with 3 levels, reviews included. Say your streak runs to Monday, you hold no freeze and you miss Tuesday. Your streak ends when Tuesday is over, and finishing 3 levels by 9 PM Thursday brings it back.

With an account, your first level or review of the day also unlocks the day's reward, a daily gift of paper cash. Claim it on Quests on a computer, or from the Hub's top card on a phone.