How to solve an exam paper with AI and actually learn from it

Two weeks before the exam, everyone gives the same advice: practise with exam papers. So you sit down with last year's question paper, get stuck on question 3(b), and the solution book either skips it or gives a bare answer with no idea of how much to write. An exam paper only helps if you can check yourself against a good answer, and know what a good answer for four marks looks like compared with one for a single mark.

This guide shows how to get model answers for a whole paper from a photo, how to use them so the paper actually teaches you something, and where you should not trust them.

Step by step

• Photograph the paper flat, in good light, one page per photo. For a longer paper, scan it into a single PDF with your phone's scanner and attach that instead. One question can carry up to 5 photos and one PDF (2 photos on a free account), so a six-page paper is easiest as a PDF.
• On the home page, choose Answer, attach the photos or the PDF, and set the style to Exam paper. The style only appears once something is attached, because it needs a paper to work on.
• Add a note if it helps, such as "this is HSC Chemistry 2nd paper", or just write "answer all the questions". Every question on the paper is answered either way.
• Pick the language you want the answers in. Technical terms stay in English whichever language you choose, the way your textbook prints them.
• Send it. Porphy first reads the paper and lists every question with its marks, then writes the answers several at a time and puts them back in the paper's order.

What "sized to the marks" means

The marks printed beside a question are the examiner telling you how much they want. The answers follow that, roughly like this:

• 1 mark: the answer alone. A word, a value, the option letter with its text, or one line.
• 2 to 3 marks: one or two precise sentences, or the key steps of a short calculation. About one creditable point per mark.
• 4 to 6 marks: a structured answer with the required points in order, the working shown in full, and a diagram if the question asks for one.
• 7 to 10 marks: a developed answer with a one-line opening, the points explained or derived, an example and a short conclusion.
• More than 10 marks: an essay answer with an introduction, organised sections and a conclusion.

If the paper prints no marks, every question gets a complete answer at the length it naturally needs. Every answer also ends with a line starting "Why:", which names the key idea, rule or step that earns the marks. That line is the most useful thing on the page for revision, because it is the part you would lose marks for leaving out.

How to use the answers so you learn something

A full set of model answers is also the fastest way to waste an exam paper. Reading them feels like revision and tests nothing. Use them the way you would use a teacher's marking:

• Attempt the paper first, timed, on your own. Only then open the answers. The gap between your answer and the model answer is the whole lesson.
• Mark yourself against the "Why:" line, not the wording. If your answer has the idea that line names, you would have earned the marks even if your sentences are different.
• For anything you got wrong, do not just reread the answer. Highlight it in the reader and ask the voice tutor to explain it. It explains out loud, draws on a whiteboard, and you can interrupt with "why" as many times as you need.
• Turn the questions you missed into practice. The Practice panel makes MCQs and flashcards from the answer document, so your weak topics come back tomorrow as questions instead of notes.
• Redo the questions you missed two days later without looking. If you can write the "Why:" idea from memory, you have learned it.

How to check an answer before you trust it

Exam paper mode answers from the paper itself and from what the model already knows. It does not search the web for these answers, so unlike a researched course there are no sources attached. That makes your textbook the source to check against. Four checks:

• Is the definition the one your textbook uses? Boards mark against the book's wording, so if the answer phrases it differently, learn the book's version.
• Does the calculation use the paper's own numbers and units? Redo the arithmetic. A wrong figure carried forward is the most common slip.
• Is the diagram the one your syllabus draws? A correct diagram in a different convention can still cost you marks.
• Did it answer what was asked? "Explain" and "state" are different instructions. If a 1-mark "state" question got a paragraph, you only need its first line.

Where it stops

• It does not know your board's marking scheme. The marks sizing is a sensible rule, not your examiner's script, and teachers mark differently.
• It cannot read what the photo does not show. A question cut off at the edge or lost to glare is listed under "Not answered" at the end instead of being invented. Retake that photo and try again.
• Handwritten papers work, but clear print works best. If an answer seems to be about something slightly different from the question on your paper, the photo was probably misread, so retake it and run that page again.
• It is a revision tool, not a way to sit an exam. Using it during a test you are taking is cheating, and it would not help anyway. The point of practising with an exam paper is finding out what you cannot yet do on your own.

Your own notes work the same way

Leave the style on Normal and the same attach button takes a photo of your notes, the board after class, or a textbook page you do not follow. The answer builds on what is on your page: it explains it, corrects any mistake in it and fills in what it skips. For what AI help is and is not good at when you study, see using ChatGPT to study: what works and what does not.