My 2 cents worth....
As a beginner, you start to appraise your cells/battery pack using very low C rates, eg Bench power supply to charge up, 150w capacity tester to discharge down. This provides basic info about your pack. As a 'first time' beginner, much of the theory seems confusing, but only once you have actually completed the process of testing, then a lot of the info just falls right into place. From intial testing, you get an idea where your cells start to diverge and the delta differences between the cells, the point at which one cell will really run etc etc. This picture however, changes somewhat, when you 'thrash test' or even just apply realistic operating values, at which point, you only then get to 'know' your cells.