25 Free Online Tools for Students (Back-to-School Edition)

The school-issued iPad is fine. But for most of what you do in a normal week — drill some Spanish vocab, look up an atomic mass, count the words in your essay — you don't need a 1 GB app. A browser tab open for ninety seconds is the right tool.

This is the list I sent to two cousins in high school and one starting at university this fall. Every page opens to a working tool, no ads, no "free trial" buttons, no phone number capture. Parents looking to give a kid a "study tools bookmark folder" can stop at this post.

1. Language learning (8 vocab decks)

1. Spanish 100 Vocab

The high-frequency 100 you'll meet in any DELE A2 or intro university class. Each word ships with part of speech, an example sentence, and pronunciation notes. Twenty minutes a day for two weeks and you start catching airport announcements.

2. Japanese 100 Vocab

The N5-flavored starter set for anyone who's been picking up phrases from anime and wants to organize it. Kanji, kana, and romaji side by side — no input-method gymnastics.

3. Korean 100 Vocab

TOPIK 1 core words. If K-dramas got you curious about reading hangul, this is a less intimidating starting point than a textbook. Each word is contextualized, not raw.

4. French 100 Vocab

For French 101, AP French prep, or the summer-before-Paris cram. Gender and plural traps are flagged on the words where the rule breaks — fewer surprises during your first conversation.

5. German 100 Vocab

A1 Goethe prep or pre-exchange survival kit. Nouns are capitalized correctly, the four cases show up in example sentences, so you start absorbing grammar while you drill words.

6. Italian 100 Vocab

Music students learning score terminology, art history majors heading to Florence, anyone with a study-abroad lined up. The fastest 100 words to be useful.

7. Portuguese 100 Vocab

Brazilian Portuguese is roughly 60% mutually intelligible with Spanish, so this deck moves quickly if you already have a Romance language. Pre-departure prep for Lisbon or São Paulo.

8. Vietnamese 100 Vocab

For Southeast Asia–focused programs, internships in Ho Chi Minh City, or backpacking trips. Six tones is the steepest part — spending an hour with these 100 saves a week of confusion later.

2. Cheatsheets and references (5 tools)

9. Periodic Table

High school chemistry and Gen Chem in college. Filter by group / period / metal-nonmetal, click any element for electron configuration, mass, and common oxidation states. Searchable, unlike the paper version taped to your binder.

10. Math Formula Reference

Trig identities, derivative rules, integral tables, series expansions. Calc 1/2/3 and the SAT subject test all draw from the same well. Ctrl+F instead of flipping through a textbook on test eve.

11. Markdown Cheatsheet

Class notes, Notion pages, GitHub READMEs for CS courses. Basic syntax plus GFM extensions (tables, task lists, strikethrough) on one page. The link-vs-image syntax you'll never quite memorize, finally available in three seconds.

12. English Grammar Rules Reference

For ESL students, AP English Lang, and anyone writing application essays. Organized by where students actually trip — comma splices, subject-verb agreement, dangling modifiers — rather than dry textbook order.

13. English Collocations

Words you know paired with the words natives pair them with. "Make a decision," not "do a decision." "Heavy rain," not "big rain." A few hundred high-frequency pairs that show up on IELTS writing and TOEFL essays.

3. Calculators (5 tools)

14. Scientific Calculator

The "I can't bring my TI-84 today" backup. Trig, logs, factorials, base conversions, memory keys. Nicer interface than Windows Calculator in scientific mode.

15. Percentage Calculator

"My midterm grade is 73/100, what overall grade do I need on the final?" "30% off and then a $5 coupon — what do I actually pay?" Same form, different numbers, dozens of times a semester.

16. Date Difference Calculator

"How many days until graduation?" "I missed 3 classes out of 28 — what's my attendance percentage?" "When does my add/drop window close?" Input two dates, get the answer.

17. Age Calculator

For applications that want age in years and months. For figuring out if you're old enough for that internship. For comparing two siblings' ages at the same milestone.

18. IELTS Band Calculator

Listening and reading raw scores to bands. Writing and speaking from the four-criteria rubric (TR, CC, LR, GR) to overall. Tells you immediately after a mock test whether you're sitting at 6.0 or 6.5.

4. Chinese language and culture (4 tools)

19. Chinese Pinyin Converter

For students taking Mandarin as a foreign language, or heritage speakers brushing up on reading. Paste characters, get pinyin with tone marks. Multi-pronunciation characters show all readings so you can pick the right one for context.

20. Chinese Stroke Counter

Mandarin students learning to write characters. Look up stroke count and stroke order before you put pen to paper. Multiple characters at once, with order animation as a bonus.

21. Chinese Idiom Search

Want a four-character idiom for "persists despite hardship"? Search by meaning, get the chengyu plus its origin and an example sentence so you don't use it in the wrong register.

22. Chinese Poetry Search

Tang dynasty poems indexed by author, period, and theme. Useful for comp-lit essays, calligraphy practice, or just appreciating the source material when you're learning Chinese.

5. Tests and self-assessment (3 tools)

23. Typing Speed Test

Online exams, online-proctored interviews, college applications with timed essays. Standard passages, real-time WPM and accuracy. Five minutes a day for two weeks moves most people from 30 to 50+ WPM.

24. MBTI Quick Test

Choosing a major, picking electives, deciding between two job offers. Forty-eight question version, ten minutes, gives you a four-letter type and a few career directions to consider. No paywall for the "full report."

25. HSK Vocabulary Quiz

For students prepping HSK 1-6 or anyone teaching themselves Mandarin who wants to benchmark vocabulary depth. Pick a level, get tested, missed words queue up for review.

How to combine them

Three pairings that earn their bookmark slot:

The first-week-of-classes set: Periodic Table, Math Formula Reference, English Grammar Rules Reference. STEM and humanities classes both get a three-second answer to "wait, what's that formula again."
The language-learner combo: Pick one of the eight vocab decks, plus the Chinese Pinyin Converter if you're studying Mandarin, plus English Collocations if English isn't your first language. Fifteen minutes a day with two languages cycling, and by mid-semester you can feel the difference.
The exam-week kit: IELTS Band Calculator, Scientific Calculator, Typing Speed Test. Score your mock tests immediately, verify hand-calculated answers, and warm up your fingers before a typed exam.

If you're a parent setting up a "study bookmark folder" for a kid, pin these 25 and you've covered most of what comes up between elementary and university. Anything that doesn't work the way it should, email me — lilei961112@gmail.com, real human, no auto-responder.

Made by Toolora · Updated 2026-05-26