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If you are in your first weeks and nobody has told you what order to learn things in, this is the order. Five stages. Each one is the same shape: read one page, try one diagram until you can predict what it will do before you touch it, then run one drill until the streak says you own it. Do them in order — each stage leans on the one before. The whole path is a few evenings.

1. Read a tape and convert fractions

   Before any theory: the one skill everyone quietly assumes you have on day one. Sixteenths, reduced, without counting on your fingers.

   • ReadFractions on a tape — why sixteenths, how to reduce, how to add two marks.
   • TryReading a tape the fast way — the eight-mark trick, with a tape you can read.
   • DrillTape measure test, then the fraction / decimal drill.

   Target: a streak of 10 on the tape drill or the fraction drill.

   Mark this stage done

2. What a circuit is

   Three conductors, three jobs. Once you can say what the hot, the neutral and the ground each do, every diagram on this site becomes readable.

   • ReadHot, neutral, ground: the three wires — and press the fault.
   • TrySingle-pole switch — the same circuit with the hot switched. Predict before you flip.
   • DrillOhm's law practice on the Basic level — put numbers on the pressure and the current.

   Target: a streak of 10 on Ohm's law.

   Mark this stage done

3. Switching

   The common, the travellers, and why neither switch in a 3-way has an "on" position. Predict every flip before you make it — that is the whole exercise.

   • ReadSwitch loop — the supply arrives at the light and a loop drops to the switch.
   • Try3-way switch — then read "What goes wrong" and diagnose the miswired one.
   • Try4-way switch — an intermediate switch that swaps the travellers.

   Target: six predictions in a row right on the 3-way, using the predict-then-check line under the switches.

   Mark this stage done

4. Receptacles

   The brass side, the silver side, the tab between them, and the two devices that break the pattern on purpose.

   • ReadDuplex receptacle — why an empty outlet is still live.
   • TrySplit receptacle — break the tab, then find out what happens when you forget to.
   • TryGFCI — line versus load, and the 240 V receptacle with no neutral at all.

   Target: a streak of 8 on the series / parallel drill — loads in parallel are what a receptacle circuit is.

   Mark this stage done

5. Control

   A small current switching a big one. The contactor, the seal-in that makes a momentary button latch, and the two switches the sky and the room operate.

   • ReadContactor — a coil pulls the power contacts closed.
   • TryMotor start/stop — press Start, then work out why it stays running.
   • TryPhotocell and occupancy sensor — switches something else operates.

   Target: a streak of 10 on the "which symbol is this" drill at the foot of How to read a schematic.

   Mark this stage done

How to use the path

Read means read the whole page, including the "what goes wrong" section where there is one — that is where the troubleshooting lives. Try means use the diagram properly: before every flip, answer the predict-then-check line under the switches, and keep going until you stop being surprised. Drill means run the drill until the streak hits the target. The streaks are kept in your own browser, so a stage ticks itself the moment a target is met on this device; the tick box is there for the stages that have no drill, and for marking a stage you did on paper.

None of this replaces your course or your code book. It is the part your course assumes you already have: the circuits as behaviour rather than as pictures, and the arithmetic as reflex rather than as effort. When the diagrams here feel obvious, you are ready for the rest of the library in any order you like.

After the path

• All wiring diagrams — grouped as a course map, with the suggested order.
• All drills — every one has a "Do 10" session mode for a lunch break.
• Trade math lessons — the teaching pages beside each drill, with printable worksheets.
• Glossary: the first-week words — hot, load, line vs load, branch circuit, feeder, pigtail and the rest.

Learn one thing a week

Now and then a new diagram, drill, or reference sheet goes up. Leave your email for a short heads-up when it does — no spam, no selling it on, one click to leave.

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