How to Use AI & ChatGPT (Smartly) for Revision

In today's fast-paced world, students are turning to artificial intelligence (AI) tools such as ChatGPT to assist them with their revision. AI has revolutionised how we work, learn, and study, offering instant feedback. This article will investigate how you can make the most of AI, using it to guide your learning and revision with more accuracy and precision than ever before. 

In this article, you will learn how to use ChatGPT, Gemini and specialist AI tools like Smart Mark to revise for your examinations. 

How to use ChatGPT to revise: 5 Ways to use AI for revision

1. Summarise lesson content 

One of the more challenging aspects of revising can be trying to recap all the content you have covered in class with a teacher. Often, the lesson slides, notes, handouts and homework can all be too much to organise. 

AI has the amazing ability of being able to very accurately summarise and condense large quantities of complex information. In doing so, you can create concise bullet point notes which can be used to help create mind maps, knowledge organisers, flashcards and more.  

As always with AI, giving it a simple prompt and attaching a document or two will not give you the most accurate results. Instead, try a prompt such as:

“You are a UK-qualified computer science teacher. Summarise my notes from school on GCSE Computer Science: Systems Architecture. I understand the main purposes of the CPU but I am struggling to understand the Fetch, Decode, Execute cycle. Can you generate a concise list of bullet points that will help me revise this topic? I have attached a PDF of my notes from the lesson, the lesson slides and a copy of the specification, so all information you return must be precise, keeping it in line with the specification, not generic. At the end of the document, can you give me a table with the list of keywords relating to this topic and in the second column, the definition so that I can turn them into a knowledge organiser at a later date?”

This approach tailors your revision more specifically to your exam board, focusing only on relevant content that will appear in your exams and avoiding any unrelated content. 

2. Test your knowledge

Testing your knowledge is one of the most effective ways to revise as it allows you to identify gaps in your knowledge.  This ensures you can work on those gaps to be certain your knowledge is secure before your examinations begin. Using AI, students can create a series of questions about a topic and also use it to generate the mark scheme for them. ChatGPT and other AI providers can also generate a range of practise questions such as multiple choice, short answer and essay questions.  

There are some major pitfalls when doing this to look out for:

1. Be sure to upload a practise paper and mark scheme from your exam board and tell the AI in the prompt to ask questions in a similar style to that found in the paper

2. You can also upload the exam board specification to ensure that the questions do not veer too far away from the syllabus you are studying

3. Don’t rely 100% on the marking of your answers, even using the mark scheme, as ChatGPT and Gemini (and other models) can get this wrong due to not having been fully trained on the nuances of your exam board and the style of the exam 

3. Create a study plan

Getting organised as a student can be a challenging thing to do. Seeing multiple lessons, with multiple exams and juggling all the dates and deadlines can be daunting for even the most organised people. 

Luckily, using ChatGPT to help you smartly plan your revision is a breeze! Simply provide the number of days you have left before your exams and the subjects you need to cover, as well as the length of time you would like to spend on each subject per day/week, and it will generate a tailored schedule.

Example:
“Create a two-week revision timetable for A Level Biology, Chemistry, and Physics. I want the output to be a table with the headings and the subjects at the top and the days of the week down the side. Each subject should get 1 hour of revision at a time and I want to revise two subjects per day. In each cell, tell me the subject and the topic to cover in that revision lesson.”

Having a structured plan in place can reduce stress and keep your revision on track, ensuring you make the most of your time.

4. AI is your new personal tutor

AI tools can be used to explain difficult concepts in an easy-to-understand manner. It can help explain difficult concepts with ease, walking you through the process step-by-step. An example of this could be asking it to explain the steps to solving an algebraic expression, collecting the like terms.

Example prompt:

“I need to simplify this expression: 8a + 4b + 3a²  - 3a - a² - My teacher explained about collecting like terms but I can’t remember how to do this. Can you explain it step by step?”

An important thing to note here is that you can not take for granted that AI will be perfect, and it is especially known for making mathematical errors. It is always best to ask for it to help explain a process or concept to you, then you attempt to answer the question. You can always ask it to double-check its answers to try and ensure a higher degree of accuracy, too. 

A second consideration is that generic AI tools will not be specific to your exam board specification and mark schemes. This can be detrimental to your learning and some exam boards require questions to be answered in a particular manner, including certain keywords for example and AI will not know this intuitively. Although you could spend significant time ‘training’ the model using past paper mark schemes, it still does not guarantee it will perform in your desired way. 

For that reason, Save My Exams has introduced a brand new artificial intelligence tool, which has been trained by subject experts and an AI developer to mark your exam questions for you. 

Our outstanding team of educational experts and developers have developed ‘Smart Mark’, a fully trained AI which will assess your exam question responses against mark schemes and exam board specifications. This was developed alongside knowledgeable, highly-experienced qualified teachers who have experience in exam board marking.

ChatGPT versus Smart Mark

Smart Mark is an AI marking tool, carefully crafted using past paper style questions, mark schemes, exam board specifications and expert teacher input to carefully check for exam keywords. Smart Mark then marks your work, providing clear and concise feedback to help you learn, develop higher quality answers and ultimately refine your exam technique ready for the final exam series.

Smart Mark’s feedback is tailored to a specific subject and exam board. We’ve trained Smart Mark to assess answers based on mark schemes, giving students the most accurate and specific feedback. Smart Mark always provides feedback that accurately reflects how students will be marked in an exam, in a way that generic AI tools such as Chat GPT can’t. 

In order to get maximum marks, a student’s response must align with what that specific exam board teaches. ChatGPT (and other generic AI tools) provides generic feedback that does not reliably align with exam-specific mark schemes, and so often misses out on key subject-specific language. This means generic AI tools can be overconfident and inaccurate in their responses, giving a student positive feedback for an answer that, if marked by an examiner or expert teacher, would not achieve the full amount of marks due to inaccuracies or lack of specific terminology.

What courses is Smart Mark available for?

At the time of writing, we currently offer Smart Mark for the following courses:

• GCSE Edexcel Business

• AQA GCSE Biology 

• IGCSE CIE Physics 

• IGCSE CIE Biology 

• IGCSE CIE Chemistry 

• GCSE AQA Eng Lit

The list of subjects and courses which offer the Smart Mark feature will continue to grow, with many more planned to be released in the coming months.

How not to use AI & ChatGPT for exam preparation

Whilst AI is a great tool to have at your disposal, you should be sure to use it wisely. Here are a few things to be cautious about.

Don’t presume all is correct

As mentioned earlier in the article, although ChatGPT and other AI models are based on large datasets, it doesn't necessarily mean they are correct and up-to-date. You must check the output against your class notes, mark schemes or textbooks. 

Don't over-rely on the use of AI

Using AI is a great way to enhance your learning experience and the speed at which tasks can be completed. However, learning can become passive which may result in underperformance when it comes to class mock exams or real examination scenarios. 

Over-reliance on the AI to do the work for you results in students avoiding using effective active recall revision methods such as flashcards, knowledge organisers, practise exam questions, quizzing etc. If you'd like alternative ways to revise, read our article on the best revision techniques to use.

This article from LessonUp also provides a useful guide for using ChatGPT to aid critical thinking.

Frequently asked questions

Can I use ChatGPT for revision?

Yes, ChatGPT can be a helpful revision tool for summarising lesson notes, and homework tasks, generating practice questions and explaining tricky topics. However, it is important to use it alongside other revision methods to ensure comprehensive understanding.

Is ChatGPT a good revision tool?

Yes, ChatGPT is an excellent tool for some tasks, but as mentioned throughout this article, not for specificity in exam question style answers. Though it is useful for automating content for the user, it is not specific enough to thoroughly check your answers and mark them for you.

How do teachers find out if you’re using ChatGPT?

Depending on the school, teachers may use plagiarism checkers or AI detection software. These are very accurate and a good indicator of where content has been completed by AI.

Your teachers will have a very good idea of where all of their students currently sit in terms of ability, writing style and progress. The best thing to do is use AI to assist your learning by writing an outline of an essay, generating some programming challenges, or asking you 20 Maths questions circles for example. Use it as a personal helper or tutor as opposed to replacing you. 

Can ChatGPT answer exam questions?

Yes, it can answer exam questions. As mentioned throughout this article, it very much depends on the quality of the input from the user as to what quality the output will be. Do not rely on AI to do the work for you, though. Instead, use it as a way of checking your work or guiding you on how to answer questions. 

Boost Your Grades With Save My Exams

Save My Exams offers an extensive suite of resources covering a wide range of courses, levels, and exam boards. Our platform provides revision notes, exam questions, explainer videos, flashcards, and more – everything students need to excel in their studies and achieve top results. 

Now, we’re introducing an exceptional AI assistant that marks exam questions, developed by an industry-leading AI expert and subject specialists with decades of teaching and examination experience. This tool gives students precise, exam-focused feedback to maximise their revision. 

Join Save My Exams to Try Smart Mark

Here at Save My Exams, we develop high-quality, affordable revision resources; consider signing up for a Save my Exams subscription to help you get the most out of your revision. We support over 1.5 million students each month in preparing for their exams and achieving successful results, we’d love to help you too.