Being honest about the small stuff, like whether you did the reading, makes the big honesty easier.

Honesty behaves like a habit rather than a decision. Each tiny admission makes the next one slightly cheaper, and each tiny dodge makes the next dodge slightly more automatic, which means the big moments are largely decided in advance by hundreds of small ones. Nobody becomes brave all at once in a hard conversation.

Take the next low-stakes question and answer it exactly, even when a vague answer would pass. You did not do the reading, you forgot, you have not started. Those sentences are practice, and practice is what shows up when something actually matters.