9 Generating questions to help you study
Purpose and important information
Questions can help you to understand a topic by providing an engaging way for you to interact with course material. You can use generative AI to produce questions to review and reinforce learning, assess your knowledge and help prepare for upcoming assessments, including quizzes and exams. This enables you to interact with the AI tool as a simulated tutor that can help you understand key concepts and provide feedback. Practising with different question types can help you to become familiar with the kinds of questions you might encounter as well as provide you feedback on your answers.
Some question types which can be used as part of your study are:
- Multiple-choice questions
- Short answer questions
- True and false questions
- Essay questions
Important note: AI tools can generate inaccurate information and the models used to create these tools may not include content relating to specific topics, particularly those which are very recent or that relate to specific locations/jurisdictions. We recommend that you do not fully rely on the questions and feedback provided by generative AI tools when studying.
Prompt template
Note: The following prompt types are most suitable for language-based generative AI. In some generative AI tools, you will obtain higher-quality responses by using a series of prompts, rather than one longer prompt.
For this type of prompt, we recommend giving the AI tool a role which mimics a person who would teach the topics you wish to review (e.g. a university tutor in …). In the prompt, specify the task (e.g. ask me questions) along with any specific requirements or parameters (e.g. to test my understanding of …).
You can provide instructions so that the AI tool knows how you’d like to interact with it moving forward, e.g. (respond to my answers to let me know if I am correct or incorrect).
You are <a role>. I am <a role>. Ask me <a type of question> that will test my understanding of <a topic or concept>. When I respond, please give feedback on my answer.
Example prompts and outputs:
The following examples were tested in RMIT’s Val:
RMIT University. (2024). Val [Large language model]. https://val.rmit.edu.au. See Appendix 2 for prompts used and text generated.
