Studying made easier with the help of AI
by Sandy Zhang on Jul 12th, 2023
Exam Season
The semester flies by and sooner than later exam season rolls around. The libraries are packed and dorm lights are on until way past dark. Exams are something we all dread, but it really shouldn’t be. With the right resources and studying methods, exams aren’t as scary as we think they are.
To find the perfect studying method for yourself, take this test to see what kind of learner you are: Auditory, Visual, or Tactile/Kinesthetic. Everyone’s learning method is different so to better prepare for an exam, one must know how they learn best. Some may prefer visual aids like charts, while others learn better through listening (auditory) or physically doing things (tactile/kinesthetic).
Studying with your preferred method makes understanding content a lot easier and more effective.
Auditory Learners
If you are an auditory learner, you learn by hearing and listening. You understand and remember things you hear. You retain information by the way it sounds, and you have an easier time understanding spoken words than written ones.
Although you cannot have AI recite things for you, you can always copy and paste the text generated by the AI into a text-to-speech tool or a voice assistant application on your device to hear it spoken aloud.
When you are confused about a topic, you may ask AI your question and then have a voice assistant help recite it to you until you grasp it.
Visual Learners
If you are a visual learner, you learn by reading or seeing illustrations. You understand and retain things by sight. You can picture what you are learning in your head, and you learn best by using methods that are primarily visual.
AI cannot generate visual representations for you directly. However, you can ask AI to generate youtube video links that help to visualize the topic. To illustrate, we take the subject of eigenvalues and eigenvectors and ask AI to help us generate some youtube links to help us visualize it. The response would be something like this:
Certainly! While I can't provide direct access to videos, I can suggest some popular YouTube channels that have informative videos on the topic of eigenvectors and eigenvalues, which may help you understand them visually. Here are a few recommendations:
1. 3Blue1Brown: This channel creates visual, intuitive explanations of various mathematical concepts. Their video titled "Eigenvalues and eigenvectors" provides a clear visual representation of the concept. Here's the link: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PFDu9oVAE-g
2. Khan Academy: Khan Academy offers a vast collection of educational videos. Their linear algebra series includes videos on eigenvectors and eigenvalues. Here's a link to the playlist: https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PLFD0EB975BA0CC1E0
3. MIT OpenCourseWare: MIT OpenCourseWare provides free access to course materials from MIT classes. Their "Eigenvalues and eigenvectors" lecture by Professor Gilbert Strang is a comprehensive resource. Here's the link: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CDK9TUqMNU8
Remember to explore these resources and find the ones that resonate with your learning style. Happy exploring!
This helps you save time in trying to search for helpful videos and lets you get directly into your studying zone.
Kinesthetic Learners
If you are a kinesthetic learner, you learn by being actively engaged in your education. You are a 'tactile' learner who uses testing, trial and error, and a non-traditional learning environment to retain information.
With AI, you can find ways to actively participate in what you’re learning to better understand the concept. Take for example the concept of torque. If you ask AI to generate real-life experiments to help you understand torque, it will produce a response similar to this:
Certainly! Here are a few small real-life experiments that can help you understand the concept of torque in physics:
1. Door Hinge Experiment: Take a door and place a small object like a ruler or a pencil on the hinge side of the door. Try pushing the door open gently using different forces and at different distances from the hinge. Observe how the door responds and how the object on the hinge side moves. This experiment demonstrates how torque depends on the applied force and the distance from the axis of rotation (hinge).
2. Balancing Act Experiment: Take a ruler or a similar object and balance it horizontally on a point (like your fingertip or a pencil tip). Attach different objects of varying weights to different distances from the balancing point using strings or clips. Observe how the ruler responds and find the combinations of weights and distances that allow the ruler to remain balanced. This experiment helps you understand how torque is influenced by the weight and distance from the balancing point.
3. Rotating Toy Experiment: Take a rotating toy or a small handheld fan. Hold it in your hand and try to change its direction or stop its rotation by applying different forces at different distances from the center. Notice how the toy responds and how the force and distance affect its rotation. This experiment demonstrates how torque affects the rotational motion of objects.
Remember to take necessary safety precautions and perform these experiments in a controlled environment. Additionally, it's always a good idea to consult with a teacher, instructor, or a knowledgeable adult before conducting any experiments.
Helpful Studying
Although everyone is a different learner, one thing that is helpful for all is the use of practice problems. Practice problems help put everything you learned together and allow you to assess what you really understand.
With the help of AI, you can generate your own practice problems and even adjust them to certain difficulty levels. We’ll take the topic of eigenvalues and eigenvectors again to demonstrate.
We can ask the AI to generate questions with a range of difficulty. We may also specify if we’d like them to be computational or conceptual.
Certainly! Here are some easy to hard conceptual and computational questions about eigenvectors and eigenvalues:
Conceptual Questions:
1. Conceptual (Easy): What is the significance of the identity matrix as it relates to eigenvectors and eigenvalues?
2. Conceptual (Intermediate): Can a matrix have more than one set of linearly independent eigenvectors associated with the same eigenvalue? Explain.
3. Conceptual (Hard): How do eigenvalues and eigenvectors play a role in solving systems of linear differential equations?
Computational Questions:
1. Computational (Easy): Compute the eigenvalues and eigenvectors of the matrix A = [[3, -1], [2, 4]].
2. Computational (Intermediate): Find the eigenvalues and eigenvectors of the matrix B = [[-2, 1, 1], [1, -2, 1], [1, 1, -2]].
3. Computational (Hard): Given the matrix C = [[4, 1, -1], [1, 2, 1], [-1, 1, 4]], calculate the eigenvalues and corresponding eigenvectors using a suitable numerical method.
Please note that for computational questions, you can use the provided matrix values to perform the calculations and find the eigenvalues and eigenvectors. Make sure to use the appropriate eigenvalue/eigenvector computation method based on the question and the specific values given.
You can ask AI to generate as many questions as you believe necessary. You may specify certain questions or ask for a broad range to see which topics you understand and which you need more work on.
Questions can be adjusted based on the topic or subject.
With that, we’ve generated a prompt that can help aid in your studying. It takes you along step by step and guides you through the studying process.
Good luck and ace those exams!