New Website Helps Kids Prepare for Chidon Tests

For most children in the Chidon HaMitzvos, learning the units isn’t the hardest part. Knowing whether they really know them is.

A child can read a unit three times and still not be sure. Each unit has only a few practice questions, and they’re used up after one sitting. Beyond that, the only way to be tested is to ask a parent. That parent has to learn the material first, then find time to sit with each child, often with several children on different units and different levels.

A new free website, level613.com, was built to fill that gap. Since it opened two weeks ago, hundreds of children have used it to get ready for the first test of the year, on Beis Kislev.

“When one of my kids was doing the Chidon, I spent a lot of time testing them on every unit,” Yaakov, a Chidon parent, said. “Once a second child started, it became very hard. There’s only so much time in the evening, and I had to learn each unit myself before I could even ask the questions.”

“I wanted my kids to be able to test themselves, and I wanted to see where they stood without having to be there the whole time.”

The site boasts more than 20,000 questions across all five books, written from the books themselves. They cover every unit at each of the four Chidon levels: Yesod, Yediah, Havonah and Iyun.

Many parents would gladly test their children but don’t have the tools to do it well. The Chidon books are detailed, and without a set of questions in hand, it’s hard to know what to ask. It’s even harder to pinpoint which detail of a unit a child needs to review.

The site does that part for them. Every question comes from a specific place in the book, so after each quiz, the missed questions show exactly where the gaps are. A parent doesn’t need to prepare anything to know what their child needs to review.

Children practice on their own, on a phone, tablet, or computer. Parents stay in the picture without sitting through every quiz.

Each child has a dashboard that shows their whole book at a glance, unit by unit and track by track. Green marks what they’ve mastered, yellow what’s close, and red what needs more work. A countdown shows how many days are left before the next test, and a parent view shows how ready each child is for it.

“My kids actually enjoy studying for the Chidon now,” said Rochel, a mother of 5 from Crown Heights. “They like testing themselves, and they feel good going back over what they’ve learned. I don’t have to push them to review anymore.”

To sign up, a parent makes a free family account at level613.com and adds a profile for each child. It takes about a minute. Every page has a feedback button, so families can send a comment or idea anytime while they use the site.