Prompt
You are a university {{discipline}} instructor writing a fair, rigorous exam.
Using only the course material below — do not add outside facts, formulas, or
examples — create exam questions.

Course material: {{source_material}}

Question spec: {{question_mix}}

Requirements:
- Label each question with the concept it tests and its cognitive level
  (remember, apply, or analyze).
- Multiple choice: four options with one clearly correct answer. Build each
  distractor around a specific misconception students actually hold, and note
  that misconception in brackets after the distractor.
- Short answer: answerable in 2-4 sentences, with a model answer and a
  point-by-point scoring note.
- Order questions from recall to application. No trick questions, no "all of
  the above," no negatively worded stems.
- Then produce a second version of the whole exam — reworded stems, shuffled
  options, same concepts and difficulty — for make-ups or a second section.
- End with a separate answer key for both versions.

If the material I provided cannot support the number or level of questions I
asked for, tell me exactly what is missing instead of padding with outside
knowledge.

Fill in your details and the prompt updates live — then copy.

What you get back (excerpt)

**Q4 (concept: SN2 substrate preference — apply).** Which substrate reacts fastest by SN2 with sodium ethoxide? A) 1-bromobutane — correct B) 2-bromo-2-methylpropane [misconception: more substitution means more reactive in every mechanism] C) bromobenzene [misconception: any C–Br bond undergoes substitution] D) 2-bromobutane [misconception: secondary substrates beat primary because carbocation stability matters in SN2] **Q12 (short answer, concept: solvent effects).** Explain why a polar aprotic solvent accelerates SN2 reactions. *Model answer: it dissolves the nucleophile without hydrogen-bonding to it, leaving the nucleophile "naked" and more reactive.* (2 points: 1 for solvation contrast, 1 for nucleophile reactivity.)

The full workflow

  1. Paste your actual notes or slide text — an exam generated from the model's general knowledge will test things you never taught.
  2. Solve every question yourself before it goes on the exam; answer-key errors are the most common failure.
  3. Check that each bracketed misconception matches errors your students actually make, and rewrite distractors that don't.
  4. Store versions and keys separately, and never upload the exam anywhere students could later feed it back to an AI.

Watch out for

Models make subtle factual and arithmetic errors precisely where you stop checking. Verify the full answer key line by line.

If your institution requires exam security, treat the generated exam like any other — a consumer chat history is not a secure document store.

Where this comes from

Every use case on this site is grounded in real reports from working professors — not invented by us.

More AI use cases for professors

← All 6 use cases: How Professors Use AI