24 prompts you can copy in one tap. Every one makes the AI ask, check, or attack — never answer. Then learn the six-part skeleton underneath them and write your own.
[PASTE THE READING — or attach the PDF] ——— ROLE: A tutor who preps students before lectures. CONTEXT: [course + level, e.g. "intro microeconomics, first-year"]. I have not seen this material yet. TASK: From the reading above, write the 5 questions this lecture should answer. CONSTRAINTS: Exactly 5. Ordered most important first. One sentence each. No answers. OUTPUT: A numbered list. INTEGRITY: Use only what I gave you. Anything not in it, mark [UNKNOWN] — never fill the gap from general knowledge.
[PASTE THE CHAPTER] ——— ROLE: A tutor who teaches first-year students. CONTEXT: [course + level]. Assume I know nothing beyond high school. TASK: List every term above I won't already know. CONSTRAINTS: Max 15, most important first. No jargon inside the definitions. OUTPUT: One line each — `term — plain-language definition`. INTEGRITY: Use only what I gave you. Anything not in it, mark [UNKNOWN] — never fill the gap from general knowledge.
[PASTE YOUR MESSY NOTES] ——— ROLE: A study-skills coach. CONTEXT: [course + level]. These are my raw lecture notes, typed fast. TASK: Reformat them into Cornell layout. CONSTRAINTS: Keep my wording. Do not add facts, examples, or explanations I didn't write. OUTPUT: A table — cue questions left, my notes right — then a 3-sentence summary below it. INTEGRITY: Use only what I gave you. Anything not in it, mark [UNKNOWN] — never fill the gap from general knowledge.
[PASTE: 1) my notes 2) this week's syllabus entry 3) the slide deck] ——— ROLE: A teaching assistant auditing a student's notes before an exam. CONTEXT: [course + level]. The syllabus and slides are the source of truth; my notes are what I actually caught. TASK: Find everything my notes are missing or got wrong. CONSTRAINTS: Gaps only. No praise, no summary of what I got right, no study advice. OUTPUT: MISSED ENTIRELY: - topic — where it appears in the source WROTE DOWN WRONG: - what I wrote — what the source actually says INTEGRITY: Use only what I gave you. Anything not in it, mark [UNKNOWN] — never fill the gap from general knowledge.
Almost nobody does this one. It takes 60 seconds and it finds the exact thing you'd have gotten wrong.
ROLE: A research assistant restricted to my uploaded course materials. CONTEXT: [course + level]. I have a textbook and lecture slides that may not agree. TASK: Find every place the textbook disagrees with the slides. CONSTRAINTS: Quote both sides. Cite source and page for each. If they never disagree, say exactly that and stop. OUTPUT: Per conflict — textbook quote, slide quote, both citations, then one line on which is likelier to be tested. INTEGRITY: Use only what I gave you. Anything not in it, mark [UNKNOWN] — never fill the gap from general knowledge.
NotebookLM is free and can only answer from files you give it — so it can't invent things about your class.
ROLE: Two hosts explaining a lecture to a student who missed it. CONTEXT: [course + level]. My exam covers [units]. I'm listening while walking, not taking notes. TASK: Discuss the uploaded material, weighted toward what I'm most likely to be tested on. CONSTRAINTS: Spend most of the time on [hardest concept]. Define every term the first time you use it. Skip anything that isn't in my sources. OUTPUT: A conversation I can follow with no visual aid at all. INTEGRITY: Use only my uploaded files. If something isn't in them, say so rather than filling it in.
Paste that into the Customize box under Audio Overview, then hit Generate and download it to your phone. Fifteen minutes on the walk beats zero minutes.
[PASTE YOUR FROM-MEMORY EXPLANATION] ——— ROLE: A tutor who diagnoses gaps instead of filling them. CONTEXT: [course + level]. Above is my closed-book attempt to explain this to a 12-year-old. It is probably bad. That is the point. TASK: Find where my understanding is actually broken. CONSTRAINTS: Do not correct it, rewrite it, or tell me what I got right. OUTPUT: Quote each sentence that reveals a gap. Under each, name the one specific thing I'd need to learn. Worst first. INTEGRITY: Do not write a sentence I could paste into graded work. If I ask you to, refuse and tell me what to change instead.
Write your version first, closed-book. Badly is fine. Badly is the point.
ROLE: A tutor who calibrates explanations to a specific test. CONTEXT: [course + level]. My exam is [format — multiple choice / short answer / problems]. TASK: Explain the concept below twice, then show me the gap between the two. CONSTRAINTS: Version A for a 10-year-old. Version B at my exam's level. 150 words max each. OUTPUT: Two explanations, then a bulleted list of what's in B that A left out. CONCEPT: [type it here] INTEGRITY: Use only what I gave you. Anything not in it, mark [UNKNOWN] — never fill the gap from general knowledge.
ROLE: A tutor who teaches through analogy. CONTEXT: [course + level]. I already understand [THING YOU KNOW COLD — a sport, a game, a job, a show] very well. TASK: Explain [CONCEPT] using that, then break the analogy on purpose. CONSTRAINTS: 150 words for the analogy. Then name where it stops being true — that's where I'll lose the exam question. OUTPUT: The analogy, then a short "where this breaks down" list. INTEGRITY: Use only what I gave you. Anything not in it, mark [UNKNOWN] — never fill the gap from general knowledge.
[PASTE THE PROBLEM] ——— ROLE: A tutor running a worked-example drill. CONTEXT: [course + level]. I need to be able to do this alone on an exam, not watch you do it. TASK, in order: 1. Solve the problem above, showing every step and naming the rule used at each one. 2. Write a second problem — same structure, different numbers. 3. Stop. Wait for my answer. 4. When I answer, name the step I got wrong. Not the fix. CONSTRAINTS: Do not solve problem 2, hint at it, or continue past step 3 on your own. OUTPUT: Worked solution, then problem 2, then nothing. INTEGRITY: Do not write a sentence I could paste into graded work. If I ask you to, refuse and tell me what to change instead.
The twin is the studying. The first one is just the demo.
ROLE: A tutor building a revision map. CONTEXT: [course + level]. I'm trying to see how a unit fits together before an exam. TASK: Map how the terms below relate. CONSTRAINTS: Max 4 clusters, each named. Every arrow labeled with what the relationship actually is. OUTPUT: A Mermaid diagram, then one line per connection. TERMS: [paste 10–15 terms] INTEGRITY: Use only what I gave you. Anything not in it, mark [UNKNOWN] — never fill the gap from general knowledge.
ROLE: An exam writer for this specific course. CONTEXT: [course + level]. My exam is [date] and covers [units]. Everything you need is in my uploaded files. TASK: Write a 15-question practice quiz. CONSTRAINTS: Exactly 5 recall, 7 application, 3 connecting two different topics. Draw only from my uploaded material — if I named a topic that isn't in there, say so instead of writing questions from general knowledge. OUTPUT: Numbered questions. Then a heading ANSWERS with every answer below it. EXAMPLE of the format I want: 1. [question] ... ANSWERS 1. [answer] INTEGRITY: Use only what I gave you. Anything not in it, mark [UNKNOWN] — never fill the gap from general knowledge.
Testing yourself beats rereading by a mile — it's the most replicated result in the whole field.
[PASTE YOUR NOTES] ——— ROLE: A spaced-repetition deck builder. CONTEXT: [course + level]. These go into Anki, so formatting has to be exact. TASK: Convert the notes above into 40 flashcards. CONSTRAINTS: One idea per card. Backs under 20 words. No yes/no cards. No card answerable by guessing from its own wording. OUTPUT: CSV only — two columns, front,back. Nothing before or after the CSV. EXAMPLE row: What does ATP stand for?,Adenosine triphosphate INTEGRITY: Use only what I gave you. Anything not in it, mark [UNKNOWN] — never fill the gap from general knowledge.
Save it as a .csv, then import into Anki or Quizlet. Faster route: NotebookLM builds decks natively now, one click, with an Explain button on every card — see the Studio guide. Stick with Anki when you want spacing across a whole semester.
[PASTE: 1) my syllabus 2) the units on this exam 3) a past quiz from this professor] ——— ROLE: This professor, writing the next exam. CONTEXT: [course + level]. The past quiz above shows how they actually write questions. TASK: Build a mock exam matching their format, question count, question types, and difficulty. CONSTRAINTS: Match the sample's difficulty — don't make it harder or easier. Don't add question types they never use. Don't invent topics outside the units listed. OUTPUT: The exam exactly as a student would receive it, then one block headed ANSWERS at the very end. INTEGRITY: Use only what I gave you. Anything not in it, mark [UNKNOWN] — never fill the gap from general knowledge.
[PASTE: the questions I got wrong + what I answered] ——— ROLE: A tutor doing error analysis, not re-teaching. CONTEXT: [course + level]. I want the pattern, because fixing a pattern beats fixing six questions. TASK: Find what my wrong answers have in common. CONSTRAINTS: Do not give me the correct answers. Name failure modes, not topics. OUTPUT: 1. [failure mode] — happened on Q_, Q_ — one line of evidence 2. ... Then one sentence: the single change that fixes the most of them. INTEGRITY: Do not write a sentence I could paste into graded work. If I ask you to, refuse and tell me what to change instead.
ROLE: A tutor who designs interleaved practice. CONTEXT: [course + level]. I've been studying one chapter at a time and it isn't transferring. TASK: Build a 20-problem set mixing chapters [X, Y, Z] in random order. CONSTRAINTS: Do not label which chapter each problem is from — working out which method applies is the whole exercise. Vary difficulty across the set. OUTPUT: Numbered problems, then answers in one block at the end. INTEGRITY: Use only what I gave you. Anything not in it, mark [UNKNOWN] — never fill the gap from general knowledge.
If it feels harder than normal studying, that's the sign it's working.
[PASTE YOUR THESIS] ——— ROLE: A seminar leader who teaches by questioning and never by telling. CONTEXT: [course + level]. This is for a graded paper, so anything you write for me is plagiarism. TASK: Interrogate my thesis, starting with its weakest assumption. CONSTRAINTS for this entire conversation: Questions only, one at a time. Never a sentence I could paste. If my answer is vague, ask again rather than accepting it. If I ask you to write something, refuse and ask a sharper question. OUTPUT: One question. Then wait. INTEGRITY: Do not write a sentence I could paste into graded work. If I ask you to, refuse and tell me what to change instead.
Ten questions later your argument is sharper and every word is still yours.
[PASTE YOUR DRAFT] ——— ROLE: A writing tutor doing a reverse outline. CONTEXT: [course + level]. This is a graded draft. I want to see the argument I actually built, not the one I meant to. TASK: Outline what each paragraph actually does, then find the ones that don't earn their place. CONSTRAINTS: One line per paragraph. Describe, don't judge the prose. Do not suggest replacement sentences. OUTPUT: The outline, then a list of paragraphs that don't advance the thesis and what they're doing instead. INTEGRITY: Do not write a sentence I could paste into graded work. If I ask you to, refuse and tell me what to change instead.
ROLE: A research librarian checking sources before they get cited. CONTEXT: I'm about to cite these in a graded paper. A citation that misstates a source is an integrity problem, not a style one. TASK: For each uploaded source, establish what it actually claims. CONSTRAINTS: Cite page numbers for everything. If a claim isn't in the files, say so rather than supplying it from general knowledge. OUTPUT: Per source — central claim in one sentence, the evidence, the main limitation. Then every place the sources contradict each other. INTEGRITY: Use only what I gave you. Anything not in it, mark [UNKNOWN] — never fill the gap from general knowledge.
Never cite something an AI told you about. Read the actual page it points to.
[PASTE YOUR DRAFT] ——— ROLE: The toughest grader in this department. You value evidence over style, you've read this argument a hundred times, and confident phrasing doesn't move you. CONTEXT: [course + level]. Assignment was [prompt]. Rubric weights [what it's graded on]. TASK: Attack the argument above. CONSTRAINTS: Fix nothing. Soften nothing. Don't open with what's working. OUTPUT: 1. My weakest piece of evidence, and why 2. The strongest objection I never addressed 3. The exact sentence a skeptical reader stops at 4. The grade you'd give, with one reason INTEGRITY: Do not write a sentence I could paste into graded work. If I ask you to, refuse and tell me what to change instead.
Highest-value ten minutes on this entire page.
[PASTE 3 THINGS I WROTE WITH NO AI INVOLVED] ——— ROLE: An editor who has worked with me for years and owes me honesty. CONTEXT: These samples are 100% mine. A profile built on AI-assisted text would describe the AI, not me. TASK: Describe my writing voice specifically enough that I'd recognize it. CONSTRAINTS: Under 300 words. No compliments, no hedging, no rewriting. "Conversational and engaging" is useless — be specific enough to be falsifiable. OUTPUT: Sentence rhythm · words I reach for · how I open and close · my tics · the one thing I do better than a generic writer · my two worst patterns. INTEGRITY: Do not write a sentence I could paste into graded work. If I ask you to, refuse and tell me what to change instead.
Save the answer. It's the most useful paragraph about your writing you'll ever get, and no professor has time to write it.
[PASTE: 1) my voice profile 2) my draft] ——— ROLE: An editor protecting a writer's voice from flattening out. CONTEXT: [course + level]. Graded paper. Sounding like everyone else costs me marks before it costs me anything else. TASK: Find every sentence in my draft that doesn't match my voice profile. CONSTRAINTS: Quote them, worst first. Do not rewrite them — fixing them is my job. ALSO FLAG regardless of profile: "it's important to note", "in today's world", "delve", "leverage", "seamless", "robust", "furthermore", "that said", "it's not just X, it's Y", and any three-item list where the third item is filler. OUTPUT: Quoted sentence, then one line on what's generic about it. INTEGRITY: Do not write a sentence I could paste into graded work. If I ask you to, refuse and tell me what to change instead.
In the MIT study, the AI-assisted essays converged on the same phrases as each other. Sounding like everyone else is a grade problem before it's an honesty problem.
[PASTE YOUR SYLLABUS — or attach the PDF] ——— ROLE: An academic planner who builds calendars out of course documents. CONTEXT: It's the start of term and I want to know where the bad weeks are before I hit them. TASK: Extract every graded item, then find the collisions. CONSTRAINTS: Never invent a date or a grade weight. Missing ones get marked [DATE TBD] or [WEIGHT UNKNOWN] and listed separately so I know what to go ask about. OUTPUT: Table 1 — date | item | % of final grade | what I have to produce. Sorted by date. Table 2 — every week where 2+ items land within 3 days of each other. INTEGRITY: Use only what I gave you. Anything not in it, mark [UNKNOWN] — never fill the gap from general knowledge.
Do this in week one. The collision table is the part that saves you — it’s where the bad weeks are hiding.
[PASTE: 1) exam date + units it covers 2) the hours I'm actually free each week] ——— ROLE: A study planner who builds schedules around spaced repetition. CONTEXT: [course + level]. I'm planning backwards from the exam, not forwards from today. TASK: Build my study schedule, then export it as a calendar file. CONSTRAINTS: Never the same topic two days running — expand the gaps (about 2 days, then 5, then 12). Interleave 2–3 topics per session. Every session ends with a self-test, never a re-read. Last full day before the exam is a timed mock, no new material. Fit inside the hours I gave you — if it doesn't fit, say what has to be cut and let me choose. Do not invent free time. OUTPUT: Table — date | duration | topics | the specific activity. "Review chapter 4" is not an activity; "blank-page recall of X, then 8 mixed problems" is. Then the same schedule as raw .ics text I can save as studyplan.ics. Ask my timezone first. INTEGRITY: Use only what I gave you. Anything not in it, mark [UNKNOWN] — never fill the gap from general knowledge.
Save the .ics text as a plain file ending in .ics, then in Google Calendar: Settings → Import & export → Import.
There are 24 prompts on this page and roughly a thousand things you’ll need that aren’t here. Every prompt above is built from the same six-part skeleton. Learn it once and you never need someone else’s list again.
ROLE: You are a [specific kind of expert]. CONTEXT: [my course, my level, my deadline, what I already know] TASK: [one action verb + the one concrete thing] CONSTRAINTS: [length, tone, and what NOT to do] OUTPUT: [table / list / CSV / the exact shape you want] INTEGRITY: Do not write anything I could submit as my own work. Use only what I gave you; mark anything missing [UNKNOWN] rather than filling it in. [PASTE YOUR MATERIAL HERE]
can you help me study for my bio exam
No role, no course, no level, no format, no limits. You’ll get a generic study-tips listicle about a subject Claude is guessing at — and it’ll sound helpful, which is worse.
ROLE: An exam writer for a first-year biology course. CONTEXT: Exam Friday, covers cellular respiration and photosynthesis. My lecture notes are pasted below. TASK: Write a practice quiz. CONSTRAINTS: 12 questions. Half recall, half application. Only from my notes. OUTPUT: Numbered questions, then a heading ANSWERS with answers below it. INTEGRITY: If I named a topic that isn't in my notes, say so instead of writing questions from memory.
Same ask, thirty extra seconds, and now it can’t drift, can’t invent, and can’t spoil the answers.
Or make Claude grade your prompt before you run it. This one is worth keeping.
ROLE: You are a prompt coach for students. CONTEXT: I'm about to send the prompt below to an AI for schoolwork. I want it to work the first time. TASK: Score my prompt, then fix it. CONSTRAINTS: Score each of the six parts — ROLE, CONTEXT, TASK, CONSTRAINTS, OUTPUT, INTEGRITY — out of 5, and say in one line what's missing from each. Be harsh; a 5 means you'd change nothing. OUTPUT: The six scores with one line each, then my prompt rewritten with every gap filled, then the single biggest change you made and why. INTEGRITY: Rewrite my prompt only. Do not answer it, and do not do the schoolwork the prompt is about. MY PROMPT: [paste it here]
Run any prompt you wrote yourself through this before you use it. It takes ten seconds and it’s the fastest way to learn the skeleton by feel instead of memorizing it.
Your school's policy always wins. When it's vague, use this.
Could you tell your professor exactly what you did, in detail, without being asked?
If every AI tool disappeared tomorrow, would you still know this material?
If either answer is no — you didn't study. You outsourced.
Optional. Open it if you want to win an argument with a professor.
Researchers called the first one cognitive debt. You borrow understanding now and pay it back at the exam.
But offloading isn't automatically bad. Lodge and Loble argued in 2026 that what matters is what you do with the time AI frees up. Spend it on something harder and you come out ahead.
Which is why every prompt here makes the AI ask, check, or attack — never answer.
1. A NotebookLM notebook for your hardest class. Upload every slide, reading and note file. 5 min
2. A Claude Project for it. Paste the syllabus and grading rubric into the project instructions so you never re-explain the class again. 5 min
3. Anki or Quizlet on your phone. 2 min
4. Run move 12 on material you studied last week. Grade yourself honestly. 8 min
That score is your real baseline — not the chapter you highlighted.
It is. Dunlosky's team rated highlighting and rereading as the two weakest things you can do with study time, which is a little awkward given the color scheme on this page.
Highlighting feels like work because your hand is moving. Nothing is being retrieved. If you want the feeling of productivity to match actual learning, close the book and try to say it out loud — that's move 7.
Do number 12. Quiz yourself on last week's material and find out what the score actually is.
Everything else here is optional. That one isn't.
Four Skills that install these rules into Claude permanently — a tutor that won’t give you answers, a quizzer that hides them, a voice checker, and a planner that turns your syllabus into a calendar file.
Get the Skills →I'm not a student and I haven't taken an exam in a long time. You have.
Four questions, about a minute, no name needed. Which ones you’d actually use, which you’d never open, what’s missing, and whether the “where the line is” part matches what your professors really say.
Tell me what’s wrong →