Google quietly gave students a free exam generator.
It’s called NotebookLM.
Upload your lecture notes, PDFs, or textbook chapters.
Then make it test you like your professor would.
Here are 10 prompts to create mock exams from your notes:
PROMPT 1:
“Act like my university professor.
Using only the uploaded sources, create a full mock exam for this course.
Include:
* 20 MCQs
* 10 short-answer questions
* 5 long-answer questions
* 3 case-study questions
Make the difficulty match a real final exam.”
PROMPT 2:
“Create MCQs from these notes that test actual understanding, not memorization.
For each question:
* give 4 options
* make wrong answers believable
* mark the correct answer
* explain why the correct answer is right
* explain why the other options are wrong”
PROMPT 3:
“Find the most testable concepts in my uploaded material.
Rank them by exam importance:
Must know
Likely to appear
Good to know
Low priority
Then explain what I should study first.”
PROMPT 4:
“Turn this material into short-answer exam questions.
For every answer, give:
* a weak student answer
* an average answer
* a top-scoring answer
* what the professor would look for
* common mistakes students make”
PROMPT 5:
“Create case-study questions from these notes.
Make each case realistic.
After each case, ask questions that force me to apply the concepts instead of just defining them.
Then provide a grading rubric.”
PROMPT 6:
“Quiz me one question at a time from the uploaded notes.
Do not give me the answer immediately.
Wait for my response.
Then grade my answer strictly, correct my mistakes, and ask the next question.”
PROMPT 7:
“Create a professor-style essay question from this material.
Then show me:
* a 5/10 answer
* a 7/10 answer
* a 10/10 answer
Explain exactly what separates average answers from excellent ones.”
PROMPT 8:
“Analyze my uploaded notes and predict what questions are most likely to appear on the exam.
Use patterns like:
* repeated concepts
* definitions
* diagrams
* formulas
* examples
* professor emphasis
Give me the top 25 likely questions.”
PROMPT 9:
“Create a ‘mistake detector’ quiz.
Ask me questions designed around the most common misunderstandings students have in this topic.
After each answer, explain the trap and how to avoid it.”
The cheat code is simple but most people miss it:
Don’t ask NotebookLM to summarize your notes.
Ask it to attack your knowledge.
1. Make it quiz you.
2. Grade you.
3. Find your weak spots.
4, Predict exam questions.
5. Explain what a perfect answer looks like.
That’s how you actually study with AI.