Prior knowledge

The defendant was convicted because the prosecutor proved the defendant's prior knowledge of the victim's particular vulnerability.

All our policies require a declaration of no prior knowledge as a matter of routine.

I had no prior knowledge of linguistics, but that didn't stop me from writing a dictionary.

The impact of prior knowledge on the acquisition of knowledge is certanly not a new finding.

Most constructivist-inspired instruction attempts to make contact with students' prior knowledge so students will learn better.

Half the students in the study were encouraged to activate prior knowledge (i.e., they wrote down everything they knew about the topic before reading the relevant passage), and half read the to-be-acquired content without opportunity for activation.