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What word should I use to roughly describe the parts of the beginning of an educational material?

Context:

  • Example1. There are 10 videos of a math series lessons. And I want to express roughly that from the beginning the videos are good, and the rest are bad.

  • Example2. The first several chapters of a book are good and the rest are bad.

How to express that in a natural way?

(It doesn't have to match this pattern)
"The ______ of the videos are good, but the ______ are bad".

Mainly I want to express:

The (beginning parts) of the videos are good, but (the parts after that) are bad. (This sounds horrible)

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  • Are you actually asking about reading material or videos—because those are quite different things. And if you're asking about videos, are you talking about individual videos in a series or individual parts of the same videos-again, you mention both things and, again, they are quite different. The title of your question and the different parts of the body of your question aren't making it clear.
    – Jason Bassford
    Sep 24, 2019 at 7:55
  • @JasonBassford Hmm. Could you please give me both examples? I was thinking they may be similar. I just want to find an adj or a general way to describe the "start/beginning/front parts" of something and then the parts comes after that thing.
    – Rick
    Sep 24, 2019 at 8:03
  • @Rick because you are asking about videos and not just written material, I've edited your question to change the description from "reading" to "educational". An answer should apply to all kinds of such material (not just those which educate) but this way it's more what you seem to want.
    – Andrew
    Sep 24, 2019 at 8:10
  • @Andrew Ok thank you. Actually anything would be fine. I just want to find a general way to describe the "start/beginning/front parts" of something and then the parts comes after that thing.
    – Rick
    Sep 24, 2019 at 8:12

1 Answer 1

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Use the available "vague" number words: couple, few, some, several, many, most, etc.

The first couple of videos are good, but the rest are bad.

The first few chapters (in the book) are good, but the rest are bad.

Some of the books in the series are worth reading, but most are not.

Note that "couple" usually refers to two elements, but it could mean more, depending on the context. Example:

A couple of people at the party said she left early

If I really meant exactly two people, I would say "two people", not "a couple of people". The use of "couple" is intentionally vague. It might be three or more people, but still a fairly small number.

"Few" suggests a small number, but again this depends on context.

In later years few citizens would admit to having voted for the disgraced politician, even though he must have had widespread support to have won the election in the first place.

In this case "few" could mean thousands or even millions of people. The point is to suggest a small percentage, not necessarily a small number.

On the other hand, "several" usually refers to a small, easily-remembered number of elements of some set:

Several people at the party said she looked ill before she left.

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  • Ah I see. It's the first word that I actually need. "The first couple of videos are bad, but I don't know how the rest will gonna be". And my original idea was that I wanted to express "first of those" and also be totally vague in amount (because I had no idea what xth video that video is). I think next time I would use your sentence or probably say "The videos I've watched so far are bad, but I don't know how the rest will gonna be".
    – Rick
    Sep 25, 2019 at 10:45

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