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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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How do I Manage my Time in Exams?

When we talk about exams, we often explore strategies for effective revision, such as active learning or making a revision plan. It’s true that strong revision techniques are the best way to do well in exams, but there are also strategies that can improve our performance once we’re actually in the exam itself.

In this blog, we’ll explore seven top tips that will help you do your best in your upcoming exams.

  • Read the Instructions: Before diving into the questions, take a moment to carefully read all instructions provided by the examiners. Make sure you have a clear understanding of what you need to do in each section. For instance, do you need to answer all questions in a section, or just choose one or two? Are your markers looking for lengthy answers, or just a full bullet points? Getting clear on these points before you start writing will save time later on.
  • Skim the Questions: Begin by quickly scanning through the entire exam paper. Identify questions that you find relatively easy and can answer quickly. Getting an overview of the whole exam helps you mentally prepare and boosts your confidence by reminding you how much you know!
  • Create a Time Budget: Break down the exam into manageable segments, considering how much time you have for each section. Prioritize your tasks based on the point value of each question. A common mistake is to spend too much time on a single question, meaning you run out of time to answer the others. For example, if a two-hour exam has four questions, all worth 25%, then you should spend approximately 30 minutes on each of them. It may help to write a little timeline for yourself, then keep an eye on a clock throughout the exam to make sure you stick to your schedule.
  • Start with What You Know: Once you’ve scanned the exam, start with the questions you are most familiar with or find easiest. This strategic approach work for two reasons: first, it helps build confidence as you work on a familiar topic; second, it makes sure you don’t spend all your time working on difficult problems while you run out of time to put down the information you already know.
  • Stay Calm: Exams can be a stressful experience, but staying focussed will help you do your best work. Try taking a few deep breaths to calm your nerves, or close your eyes and meditate for a minute. If you can’t think of what to write, pull out some spare paper or open a new document and try writing down whatever comes to mind, in any order. An ideas dump at the beginning of an exam can help you get important facts out of your head, then you can structure them into full answers later.
  • Flag and Return: Don’t let yourself get stuck on difficult questions. When you find something you can’t answer right away, flag it and move forward. Returning to challenging questions after completing the rest of the exam ensures that you make the most efficient use of your time. As you answer other questions, the your mind will be working on the original problem in the background. When you come back to it at the end, you may even find the answer has already come to you!
  • Review Your Work: If you have time, save a few minutes at the end to review your answers. Pay attention to areas where you might have made errors or could provide more detail. A thorough review not only helps catch mistakes but also allows you to refine or add material that can make your answers even better.

Doing well in exams is mostly about good revision, so make sure you check out our other resources on revision techniques! Once you’ve got those down, though, the strategies here will make sure you do your best in your exams and truly demonstrate everything you’ve learned.

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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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Recovering After Exams

After weeks of revision, spending countless hours packing a whole semester’s worth of material into our brains, exams are finally over. Instead of spending our days in the library, we can finally relax and do whatever we want. Instead of staring at our screens, we might finally get the chance for a little “me time.”

Except, recovering after a stressful exam season is harder than it sounds. It can be hard to relax properly and stop feeling stressed all the time. It might be difficult to know what to do with our time now that we’ve lost the structure of uni. And, on top of all this, it’s quite likely we’ll come down with a cold or other post-stress illness.

So, how do we recover well after exams? Read on for our three top tips!

Recognise the Let-Down Effect

We’ve all heard that stress can make us ill, but the reality is that stress can actually boost our immune system— for a little while. Moderate amounts of stress make us less likely to get sick during stressful times, but when the stress is removed (e.g., after exams are done) our immunity drops. It’s so common to get a cold after exams that this even has a name: the Let-Down Effect.

All the strategies in this blog post will help combat the Let-Down Effect to some extent, but the best thing you can do is to keep up some level of activity. Instead of staying in bed all day binging Netflix, make sure to get up and go for a walk/run. Alternatively, give your brain something to keep it busy, like a good book or a puzzle game. Short bursts of moderate physical and mental activity can soften the Let-Down Effect and prevent us from getting ill.

Reconnect with Your Subject

Chances are, you probably didn’t find exam time much fun. One of the sad parts of being a student is that sometimes all the hard work can crowd out our love for our subject. Once exams are done, however, you have time to explore things you’re genuinely interested in without any pressure.

Over the holidays, take time to enjoy your subject. If you study English, read a book just for fun. If you’re into languages, watch a foreign film. A geographer could go walking in the hills, or a chemist might follow the news to learn about recent breakthroughs in the field. Whatever it was that got you into the subject in the first place, try doing that thing again. Don’t worry about any of this being useful or related to your modules; the only criteria is it should be interesting to you.

Rebalance Your Life

We talk a lot about the importance of Work-Life Balance during busy times of year, but what about during quiet times? It can be hard to know what to do with ourselves once the busyness of semester is over. In this case, it’s important to remember two things. Firstly: it’s okay to rest sometimes! You don’t always have to be doing things, because our value as human beings is not defined by our productivity. And secondly: good rest often looks like intentionally doing something restful. Instead of scrolling social media, try taking a walk or having tea with a friend or watching a favourite TV show. You’ll feel much better rested if you intentionally do something you enjoy, rather than sitting around doing nothing.

Of course, for many of us, the uni holidays may not be quiet at all. We may have caring responsibilities, or a job, or other obligations at home. If the holidays are a stressful time for you, it’s important to incorporate small elements of rest and celebration after exams. Have a special dinner one night to recognise your achievement, or plan a quick get-together with your peers. You can also try micro-breaks, like a five-minute meditation while you make tea or a short walk just before bed. It doesn’t have to take long, but even small pieces of rest and celebration can signal to your body that the stressful exam season is at an end.

Conclusion

Although settling into life post-exams has its challenges, it can also be a wonderful time to rest and recharge. It’s important to recognise some potential difficulties, such as the Let-Down Effect, and to plan to use our time well. If we’re intentional about staying healthy, rekindling our love for our subject, and celebrating out wins, then the weeks after exams can be a really enjoyable time to relax and reset our work-life balance.