Generative AI Won’t Replace Your Teacher but Help You Prep For Exams Better

By Shikhar Sachan, Co-founder, Civilsdaily

If you’ve ever prepared for a competitive test exam, then you’d know that clearing these exams requires that you operate in beast mode. In a country like India, crores of students aspire to crack these exams every year in the hope of a stable job and upward social mobility. Naturally, one would go to the moon and back to cement their chances of success, optimizing every single bit of their preparation journey – learning from the best teachers, getting the best notes, etc

Enter Generative AI – a transformative technology poised to improve test prep and performance exponentially.

Students attempt hundreds of tests to familiarize themselves with the exam pattern, develop exam temperament, and know their relative standing among peers. More often than not, these aren’t as effective as students tend to overlook the assessment part. Effective assessment goes beyond tallying the right or wrong answers. It involves understanding the underlying reasons for errors. Was it a conceptual misunderstanding, lack of last-minute revision, or merely over-attempting difficult questions that one is required to pass? This comprehensive analysis is a must for targeted improvement. Unfortunately, this process requires significant time and effort, which students may lack or find mentally draining.

Generative AI can do the heavy lifting here. Think of a system that tells you the reason why you got a question wrong and then suggests a short clip to revise that particular concept and attempt ten similar questions for better understanding.

When it comes to subjective papers like essays, humanities, etc. an AI evaluator grades answers based on exam-specific best practices rather than generic knowledge. This is particularly relevant in the context of board exams, and government entrance exams where answers are expected to follow a specific format and stick to core books. AI evaluators can mimic the best human evaluation at scale and point out precise feedback. It ensures consistency and fairness in grading, providing valuable feedback to improve the quality of answers.

Generative AI cuts down manual efforts by enabling advanced queries on base books and previous year’s exam questions. It can analyze the frequency of questions on specific sub-topics within a subject, determine which topics hold greater importance, and create sample questions that closely resemble those asked in previous exams. Such granular integration of Generative AI in test preparation is poised to revolutionize the ed-tech industry and empower aspirants to unlock their full potential.

By harnessing the power of Generative AI to provide personalized guidance, targeted practice, and accurate assessment, students can achieve greater success. What is sure is that the future of test prep is promising.