How To Use AI To Study For Exams - With Demo

Brief Summary:
This video by Tom explains, step by step, how to harness AI tools to make studying for exams faster, easier, and more effective. He covers his overall study strategy, demonstrates using AI to simplify complex textbooks, and shows how to turn hand-written or textbook notes into efficient study resources—with examples focused on medicine but applicable to any subject. The key takeaway is: Spend your time learning efficiently rather than getting bogged down organizing notes.

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1. Introduction: Why Use AI for Studying?

Tom begins with a warm welcome and shares that he's finally recording a video that's been on his mind for a long time. He wants to help students, especially those in medicine (but really any subject), use AI in the most effective way to study for exams.

He shares his background in medicine to set the stage:

"I come from a medical background, so this is mostly my experience of studying medicine, but you could use this to study pretty much any kind of topic that you need to revise for your exams."

Tom emphasizes that these principles work regardless of your subject. With exams pulling from so many different information sources—lectures, books, online papers, group discussions—it's easy to feel overwhelmed.

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2. My Study Strategy: The Database Model

Tom starts by outlining his general exam prep strategy, explaining how AI fits in and makes things easier.

Sources and Resources

First, Tom describes the many resources students might have:

• Books 📚
• Lectures 🧑‍🏫
• Research papers and journal articles
• Online resources

"You've got all these books, lectures, research papers, small group discussions... they're not well organized for you to study from."

The External vs. Internal Database

This all leads to what Tom calls two types of "databases":

1. External Database:
   This is a simple, organized folder or set of notes with everything you need to know for your exams.

   "The external database needs to be really simple, really easy to read through and absorb information from, and well organized into topics you can study in one to three hours."

2. Internal Database:
   This is your brain—what you truly know and remember.

   "What you're doing is transferring information from the external database to the internal database—your brain."

He cautions strongly against wasting time making beautiful notes or over-organizing, because:

"Any time you're wasting organizing notes, making beautifully illustrated notes… is a waste of time, because you won't have access to your notes in your actual exams."

Instead, the real value comes from getting info into your head:

"All your energy should be trying to get stuff to stick in your brain."

In summary, focus on learning, not just collecting notes!

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3. Using AI to Study Complex Textbooks

Now, Tom addresses a major pain point: textbooks are often complicated, dense, or tough to understand, making you feel frustrated or lost. 🤯

He shares:

"The textbooks and resources that are available can be so complicated and so difficult to understand... like you're not making any progress."

Tom's own solution was to write simple textbooks ("Zero to Finals"), but he knows not everyone is studying medicine or has access to such notes. Most people still need to use those big, tough textbooks.

Step-by-Step Demo: Turning Book Pages into Study Gold

To make any textbook easier to study, Tom demonstrates how you can use AI:

1. Scan pages from your textbook
   • Use your phone's scan feature to capture pages on the topic you want to study (e.g., "hypothyroidism").
2. Create a PDF from your scans.
3. Upload the PDF to an AI model (he uses Grok, but says ChatGPT and others work too).
4. Prompt the AI:
   Example prompt:

   "Make concise and easy-to-study notes from this document on hyperthyroidism."

5. Let AI summarize and simplify the content.
   • The AI picks out the most important points and explains them simply.
6. Copy the AI-generated notes into your study documents.

He says:

"The AI will analyze the document and pick out the important points and make it easy for you to study."

Supercharge Your Study: Practice Questions Made Easy

You can supercharge this process by asking the AI to generate questions:

• Short Answer Questions

  "Please create short answer questions with answers based on this content."

• Multiple Choice Questions (MCQs)

  "Please create multiple-choice questions, best of five answers, on the same content."

Tom summarizes this external database creation process:

"Photo of the book, make that a PDF, put it into the AI, and that gives you short answer questions, notes, and multiple choice questions. And that way you now have your external database."

He notes you can do this for:

• Lectures or lecture slides
• Research papers (by, for example, searching "psoriasis review paper" and uploading that)

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4. How To Learn From Notes: The Testing Sandwich Method

After building your external database, it's time to actually learn and get the information into your "internal database" (your memory).

Here's where Tom introduces his favorite technique—the "Testing Sandwich":

1. Short Answer Questions First
   • Test yourself to identify knowledge gaps.
2. Read and Recall
   • Read your notes or the simplified summary, then actively recall key information.
   • Tom has a whole video about this step!
3. Multiple Choice Questions
   • Test your understanding with MCQs.

"You do the testing sandwich... first short answer questions, then read and recall, then multiple choice questions."

Use Spaced Repetition for best results:

• Study a topic now
• Repeat in 1 week
• Repeat again in 6 weeks
• Repeat every 6 months for long-term retention

"These spaced repetitions help the information to stay with you."

Track your progress by recording your scores for each question set as you go. You'll see improvement over time and feel ready for your exams!

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5. Wrapping Up and Extra Resources

Tom wraps up by apologizing for not being at his sharpest due to a bad cold, but emphasizes his main goal: helping students use AI to study smarter, not harder.

"I hope this video was helpful... sorry, probably not my finest video. I've got quite a nasty cold, but I wanted to get this video out there."

He mentions that you can download his "scribbles"—hand-drawn notes summarizing the process—via Patreon for neat reference and check out his website for more resources and structured study tools.

He finishes with encouragement and thanks viewers for joining him, inviting everyone to access the extra resources and join for future videos.

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Final Thoughts

In summary, Tom's message is clear and practical:
Let the power of AI do the heavy lifting when it comes to organizing and simplifying your study materials. Spend your precious time actively learning and testing yourself instead of drowning in note-making. With tools and processes like these, any subject becomes less overwhelming and more manageable for exam success! 🚀