Learn How to Learn · Lesson 2 of 2

Using AI as a tutor, not a shortcut

Ask AI to question you and give feedback — measure learning by what you can do on your own.

6 min read · Free — no account needed to read

AI can be an excellent tutor if you tell it to be one. Ask it to quiz you, to explain an idea three different ways, to act as a Socratic questioner, or to give feedback on your explanation.

Ask it to explain like you are new, then ask it to push you to the next level. Ask "what do beginners usually misunderstand here?"

Always check sources for anything you will rely on. And judge your learning by what you can do without the tool, not by what you did with it.

See it happen

You have been studying a topic with an assistant for two weeks, and every session feels productive.

The read that arrives on its own

You follow every explanation as it arrives, so the studying is clearly working.

The same situation, with this idea

You ask it to quiz you one question at a time and hold back the answers. You get the first two and stall completely on the third — something you had read four times. Now the session has somewhere to go.

What changed

Following an explanation and being able to produce it are different abilities, and only one of them was being tested. Flipping the assistant from explaining to asking made the gap visible while there was still time to close it.

The takeaway

Ask AI to question you and give feedback — measure learning by what you can do on your own.

Easy to take the wrong way

Judging a study session by how smooth it felt. Smooth usually means you were recognising the material rather than retrieving it — the sessions that feel effortful and slightly embarrassing tend to be the ones doing the work.

Try this

Tell an AI: "Quiz me on this topic, one question at a time, and don't reveal the answer until I try."