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Can AI Help me Revise?

This guest post was written by Emma Duke-Williams (CTIL)

Revising, as all students know, can be challenging. It’s difficult to re-read notes, while making sure you understand what they mean, as staff rarely ask you to just regurgitate facts, they want you to show that you understand the content.

So, could Artificial Intelligence tools help you?

Hopefully you’ve seen the Use of Generative AI for Students published in September. This guidance summarises many points about Generative AI (GAI), including a list of (some) potential uses and some points to be aware of.

I’ll start with a few things you should know:

  • Generative AI does not know facts; it simply generates content based on existing content. It can’t validate the accuracy of its information.
  • Some sites require you to sign up and supply an email or phone number, which you may not be comfortable doing.
  • There are concerns about various ethical practices of these tools.

If you’re doing coursework or any graded assessments the University’s position is that you must NOT use GenAI unless its use has been specifically authorised by your lecturer in the assessment brief. This includes remote online exams (i.e. when you’re not invigilated on campus).

However, today we’re looking at your revision. Alongside your highlighter pen and flip cards, could GAI be another tool in your revision kit?

Let’s take some of the ideas for potential use of GAI and think about them in context of your revision.

If you’d rather not share your phone number with external bodies, then we suggest going to Bing.com, signing into it with your University Account and using Microsoft CoPilot. You may, of course, already have an account on ChatGPT, Bard, Claude, etc., in which case you can use that instead.

Once you’ve logged in to your GAI of choice, here are a few potential ways it can help you with your revision.

Summarising

GAI can summarise longer texts and documents to help you check your own understanding of the key messages and concepts presented.

There are a number of ways to do this, but I’d recommend following Nathan Beel’s advice. He reminds you to check what is generated, and make sure not to use it for your coursework. He also talks about using GAI to generate some multiple choice questions; perhaps you and a friend could both generate sets of questions from two different papers you should have read, and then swap.

There are other tools that will summarise pdfs, such as ResearchRabbit. You’ll have to create an account, and the free accounts are limited to 3 uploads a day.

Debating

GAI can act as a conversational or debating partner to develop your ideas and thinking. GAI is very good at answering questions you pose it. If you’re not sure about something, why not start a discussion with an AI?

Martin Compton has made a useful video demonstrating GAI discussions. You might also like a previous video of his looking at enhancing any lecture notes you might have made.

Understanding

GAI can help you understand tricky concepts. Hopefully, at this stage of the semester, you have covered the basics, and you do understand them! However, if you are very unsure of some of the content, then a quick question about some of the basics could help you. Remember, GAI can make errors, so perhaps using what it’s generated to “spot the ‘deliberate’ mistakes” could act as a useful tutor for you.

What other ways have you found to use GAI in your revision? Do you think it was useful, or do you have other ways you have found more useful?

Finally, remember, revision is critical; GAI can help you, but it shouldn’t be the only way you revise. You don’t have to use it at all, and if you choose to, it’s most effective alongside a range of strategies.  

Good luck with your exams!

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Single Best Answer Exams

If you’re in a clinical subject, such as Medicine or Dentistry, you’ve probably heard of Single Best Answer exams. These exams tend to count for quite a high percentage of your grade, and they can seem trickier than typical Multiple Choice questions.

Before we start, what exactly are Single Best Answer questions? Simply put, they’re a type of Multiple Choice question where all the answers are technically correct, but only one of the answers is “best.” These questions typically test your clinical reasoning, and they ask questions such as “What is the best investigation?” or “What is the best treatment?”

These types of questions can be challenging at first, but in this resource we’ll highlight seven strategies to help you prepare for Single Best Answer exams.

1: Read the Question

It might sound obvious, but it’s worth a reminder: read the question! Often, SBA questions hinge on a single detail, such as the patient’s demographic or medical history. Make sure to read the question at least twice and watch out for details that could be important.

That said, sometimes the question will include information that’s not relevant, so don’t feel like you need to account for every single detail when deciding on an answer.

2: Use the ILOs

Every course will have Intended Learning Outcomes that list what you should know by the end of each year. All your assessments will match up to these ILOs, so they’re an excellent way to know what to revise.

When using the ILOs, pay special attention to any that won’t be assessed anywhere else. Practical ILOs will often be covered by things like OSCEs, but many areas of knowledge can only be assessed through an exam, so focus your revision on those.

3: Focus on the General

By nature, SBA questions tend to focus on the general, rather than the specific. After all, if you’re asked about the best treatment, and all the answers are potentially correct, what you’re looking for is the solution that is most likely to work in the majority of cases.

In your revision, then, focus on patterns, not outliers. You’re looking for the answer that is most likely, not any that could be possible.

4: Focus on Understanding

With SBA questions, it’s important to focus on understanding rather than memorisation. The questions will often involve multiple stages, such as combining a patient’s symptoms and medical history to work out a diagnosis, then suggesting the best possible treatment. In these cases, it’s essential you fully understand the condition, rather than just memorising a few facts.

This type of understanding is called “Clinical Reasoning,” and it’s an essential part of being a good clinician. Basically, these exam questions aren’t asking, “Do you know the answer?” they’re asking, “Can you work out the answer?”

5: Make Connections

Clinical reasoning is all about putting information together to identify the best way to proceed. This means your revision needs to focus on combining ideas, rather than just memorising facts.  A good clinician will understand how different information fits together.

One way to do this is to combine different ILOs, or different sections of your course. You might choose two ILOs and ask yourself how they intersect, or pick two lectures and explore how what you learned one week impacts what you learned the next. Revising this way should unearth some interesting connections, and it will also train your brain to bring different aspects together.

6: Use Scenarios

SBA questions often rely on scenarios, so it’s a good idea to use them in your revision. Try writing a scenario for yourself, such as, “A 5-year-old female presents with pain in her jaw…” This strategy can work particularly well in groups, as everyone can take turns presenting scenarios and you can discuss them together.

To make this strategy even more effective, try modifying your scenarios. Add or change details and see how that might change the answer. You can also try writing your own answers; see if you can come up with some good options that are correct but not “best”!

7: Understand Effective Revision

While SBA exams might sound quite different from other kinds, the reality is that most effective revision strategies are fairly universal. To do your best on exams, it’s important to understand principles like active revision, recall vs. recognition, and the importance of continuous revision.

If any of those terms are unfamiliar to you, we recommend you check out our Revision Bites resource. This resource contains many of the most effective learning strategies that will help you on any type of exam.

Conclusion

In this resource, we’ve covered seven different strategies for revision for SBA exams. This format is new to many students, but its focus on understanding rather than memorising will help you develop the skills you need to be a good clinician. If you use these strategies and focus on developing your clinical reasoning, you’ll soon become much more adept at picking out the “best” response.

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How do I Know My Revision is Working?

Imagine this: you’re working hard, revising for your exam. Every morning you wake up early and spend all day in the library, reading your textbooks and going over lectures. You copy out pages and pages of notes and highlight all the key concepts. But finally, when you get to the exam, you can’t remember a thing.

Unfortunately, this scenario happens all too often. The problem is that many revision strategies that seem useful at the time don’t actually help us remember information long term.

One easy way to improve is to make our revision more active. Using active revision techniques is the best way to ensure we’re spending our study time in a way that will actually improve our exam results.

Even if you are using active techniques, though, it’s still good to check how your learning is progressing. Here are three ways to ensure your revision is effective, as well as a few potential pitfalls to avoid.

Past Papers

The obvious way to test yourself is by using past papers or practice questions. Sometimes these will be provided by your tutor, or you might be able to find them online.

One great way to use past papers is to give yourself a mini exam. Set a timer for the length your exam will be, then work through the past paper, just like you would in a real exam. Answer all the questions as thoroughly and accurately as possible, without referring to your notes.

Afterwards, go through and “grade” your exam. Think about the parts that you knew really well, and write down the areas where you struggled. Go back to your notes and fill in any gaps, and spend more time revising the difficult areas.

Potential Pitfall: Make sure you use other revision techniques, not just past papers. If you don’t supplement past papers with other techniques, you’ll end up learning all about last year’s exam, but you won’t know how to answer this year’s questions!

Brain Dump

This strategy helps you see what information you’ve fully retained. Choose a topic, pull out a blank sheet of paper, and write down everything you can remember. Then, compare with your notes to see what information you forgot to include. Everything on your brain dump paper is stuff you know, and everything that’s missing could probably do with some more revision.

Potential Pitfall: After doing a brain dump, it’s essential to go back and revise the information you missed. It can be tempting to look back at your notes and think, “oh, I actually know that,” but if you didn’t include it in the brain dump, chances are it could do with a little reinforcement.

Quiz Your Friends

Working with others is a great way to test your own revision and ensure you don’t miss anything. Creating a quiz for your friends is a helpful active learning strategy, and seeing how they do on your quiz will give you a sense of if you’re asking the right questions. Similarly, having a friend create a quiz for you will help you test your knowledge. You can also discuss the answers with your friends and work through the content together.

If you don’t have any friends on your course, you can still use this strategy. Simply give your notes to a friend or family member and ask them to pick out bits of information and ask you questions. They don’t need to be a subject expert; in fact, it might actually be helpful for you to provide simple answers that a layperson can understand.

Potential Pitfall: Whenever you’re working with coursemates, watch out for imposter syndrome. Revision can be stressful, and it’s all too easy to compare ourselves with others and feel like we’re falling behind. While our peers can give us a good benchmark for our revision, it’s important to remember that just because someone else sounds like they know everything, doesn’t necessarily mean we’re not as good.

Conclusion

As exams approach, it’s important to test ourselves to see if our revision is working. By using past papers, trying the brain dump strategy, and quizzing our friends, we can get a much more accurate idea of what we know and what we still need to learn.

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How do I make my revision more active?

When we think about revision, what strategies come to mind? Often, we think of strategies like highlighting textbooks, watching lectures, or rewriting our notes. These techniques are all good ways to start, but they’re fundamentally passive; they don’t require much thought. To do really well at our exams, it’s essential to spend the majority of our time on more active techniques.

Passive Revision

Passive revision is when we engage with the material on a surface level, without thinking deeply about it. Even though passive revision techniques aren’t very useful, they can be tempting because they’re easier than active techniques. They also make us feel productive, even when we aren’t actually learning anything.

Common passive techniques include:

  • Reading notes/textbooks
  • Copying notes/textbooks
  • Collating notes from different sources
  • Highlighting
  • Rewatching lectures

Active Revision

Active revision, on the other hand, makes us think. When we revise actively, we consider information in new ways and make connections between concepts. We also practice retrieving that information from our brains, ensuring we don’t just recognise information but we also recall it.

Active revision is much more work than passive revision, but it’s far more effective. Just a few hours spent on active revision can be as valuable as a full day of passive revision. This is great news because it means, if we revise actively, we can actually spend less time working and have more time left for fun!

Active Techniques

  • Create diagrams/mindmaps. Taking information and representing it in a new format helps us think things through and understand it more deeply. This strategy is particularly effective for visual learners.
  • Connect course concepts. Don’t always revise just one lecture at a time. Instead, ask yourself how the lectures connect to each other. How does what we learned in Week 1, for instance, impact on Week 10’s lectures?
  • Brain dump. Choose a topic/lecture, then take a blank piece of paper and write down everything you can remember. Afterwards, compare with your notes and check what you’ve forgotten.
  • Flashcards. Whether you make your own deck or use someone else’s, flashcards can be a great way to test yourself on key concepts. Just make sure you really are testing yourself, not flipping over the card before you’ve had time to answer.
  • Practice questions. If your module has practice questions or past papers, these are great ways to test your learning. If not, why not write some of your own questions?
  • Group study. Working with others can be a great way to learn. Try teaching a key concept to your peers, or quizzing each other on tough facts. Just remember to focus on your own progress, though, and not get caught up in comparing yourself with others.

Conclusion

Next time you’re revising, try switching out some passive techniques and replacing them with active ones. It may take more brainpower at first, but using active learning strategies will help you revise much more effectively in much less time.