The AI works as your private tutor across five phases: it tests you first, finds your weak spots, then teaches to those specific gaps. Copy the prompt below, swap the details inside [ ] for your own situation (or your child’s), and paste it into Perplexity or any AI chatbot.
🎯 How the five phases work
Phase 1 — Test you — The AI writes ten diagnostic questions and is not allowed to give the answers. You attempt them yourself first.
Phase 2 — Diagnose — It marks every question and names the underlying concept you’re missing — not “you’re weak at integration,” but “you can’t do u-substitution with radical expressions” — then ranks those gaps by urgency.
Phase 3 — Re-teach — It takes your three weakest concepts and teaches each one from scratch, as if you’d never seen it, with a worked example.
Phase 4 — Re-test — New questions, harder than the first set, shuffled together so you can’t pattern-match your way to the answer.
Phase 5 — Loop — Still wrong? Back to phases 3 and 4 with a different explanation and fresh questions, until it sticks. Once it does, it goes on a spaced-review list with a date to revisit.
The single most important line is “you will not skip phases.” Without it, the AI will very likely dump the answers and the explanation all at once in its first message — and then you’re back to “help me revise,” with none of the diagnostic value.
💬 The Prompt
你係我嘅 [科目] 導師。我讀緊 [年級]，距離考試仲有 [X] 日。 我哋會分五個階段進行，你唔准跳階段。開始之前，請先確認你明白。 第一階段：診斷測驗 出十條診斷題畀我，範圍涵蓋 [列出單元／課題]。 多項選擇同短答題混合，難度要貼近真實考試水平。 唔好畀答案。我會喺下一個 message 交答案畀你。 第二階段：批改同診斷 我交答案之後，逐題批改。 凡係我答錯、或者答啱但理由錯嘅題目，指出我究竟缺咗邊個具體概念——唔係淨係講個課題名，而係背後嗰個底層原理。 再按我剩低嘅時間，將我啲弱點由最緊急排到最唔緊急。 第三階段：重新教學 揀我最弱嗰三個概念，當我從來未學過咁由零教一次。 每個概念配一條完整嘅示範例題。 講得精簡啲，唔好加廢話。 第四階段：再測 每個弱概念出五條新練習題（合共十五條），難度要高過第一次診斷測驗，而且要打亂次序混合埋一齊，等我唔可以靠題型估答案。 唔好畀答案。我會交答案畀你。 第五階段：確認掌握或者循環 批改第二輪。 如果我仲係答錯某個概念，就將嗰個概念再走一次第三同第四階段，但要換一個解釋角度、出全新嘅題目。 如果我已經掌握咗，就將佢移去「間隔複習清單」，並且根據遺忘曲線話我知幾時應該再溫一次。 由第一階段開始。等我交答案先再繼續。
🔍 Why we suggest Perplexity
Perplexity attaches source links to every answer, so you can click through and check whether what it told you actually holds up.
The real risk when you revise isn’t learning slowly — it’s learning something wrong without realising it, especially with definitions, formulas and dates. Source links give you a way to verify.
ChatGPT, Claude and Gemini all run these five phases perfectly well. The difference is just that you have to do the fact-checking step yourself.
💡 Tips
The more precisely you fill it in, the more relevant the questions:
- Subject + grade level — So the AI pitches the difficulty right (e.g. S3 Maths, P5 General Studies, DSE Biology).
- The specific units — Don’t just write “Maths” — write “quadratic equations, factorisation, coordinate geometry”.
- Days left — This is what drives how it prioritises your weak spots.
- Paste in the syllabus or textbook contents — The questions get considerably more accurate.
The most common way this fails: giving in and asking the AI for all the answers up front. The whole value of a diagnostic question is the moment you get it wrong — that’s when you find out what you genuinely don’t know, rather than what you assumed you knew.
👨👩👧 For parents
- The first time, sit with your child and demonstrate one round — how to answer, how to send the answers back to the AI.
- The Phase 2 diagnosis is the best report you’ll get on where they’re actually weak. Screenshot it; it’s useful when you next talk to their teacher.
- The Phase 5 review list can go straight into a calendar and become a real revision schedule.
One last thing: AI is the sparring partner, not the one sitting the exam. The questions it writes and the answers it gives still need a final check from you (or a parent). Don’t trust AI blindly — but do learn to use it.
