Using AI for Revision: Flashcards and Practice Questions, Safely

Most Kenyan learners with a phone have already used an AI tool for schoolwork, and most of them have used it the wrong way: pasting in the question and copying out the answer. That feels like studying, produces a completed exercise book, and teaches nothing, because the one thing that builds memory, the effort of retrieving an answer, has been outsourced.

Used differently, the same tools are among the most useful revision aids a family has ever had access to, and they cost nothing or close to it. This guide sets out the two uses that genuinely help a KPSEA, KJSEA or IGCSE candidate, the one use that harms, the rules that keep a household on the right side of the line, and the specific prompts to type. Information current as of Term 3, 2026.

The principle: AI asks, the learner answers

Everything in this article follows from one finding in the research on how memory forms. Knowledge is built by retrieving it, with effort, from your own head, and it is not built by reading, recognising or copying it. Our guide to how to revise so it sticks sets out the evidence; the short version is that practice testing is the most effective technique known, and rereading is among the least.

An AI tool can sit on either side of that line. Ask it for the answer and it removes the retrieval, which removes the learning. Ask it for the question and it becomes an inexhaustible source of practice testing, which is exactly the resource most learners run out of once the past papers have been done twice.

Use 1: flashcards from the learner's own notes

Flashcards are practice testing in physical form, and they are tedious to make, which is why most learners never make enough of them. AI removes the tedium without removing the benefit, provided the source is the learner's own notes rather than the AI's general knowledge.

The instruction "from these notes only" matters. Without it the tool will add material of its own, some of which will be outside the KICD design and some of which will simply be wrong. Anchoring it to the learner's notes keeps it inside the syllabus that will actually be assessed.

Use 2: extra practice questions when the past papers run out

A Grade 9 candidate eight weeks from KJSEA can exhaust the available past papers for a sub-strand in an evening. The next evening they need more questions of the same type, and until recently there was nowhere to get them. This is the use where AI is most valuable.

Two checks apply. First, AI-written questions are occasionally wrong, so an answer that does not match should be checked against the notes before the learner assumes the mistake was theirs. Second, "in the style of" is not the same as "from the paper". The tool has no special knowledge of what KNEC or Cambridge will set. It is producing practice at the right level and in roughly the right format, which is all it needs to do.

Use 3, with care: explanations at 9pm

The third legitimate use is as the tutor who is not in the house. A learner stuck on why a chemical equation balances, or how to find the gradient of a line, can ask and get an explanation immediately rather than waiting for the next lesson. This is genuinely useful, and it is the use Somo, our own CBC tutor, is built for, because it answers in the terms of the KICD design rather than in an American textbook's.

The safeguard is the same one a good tutor applies: explain the method, then hand back the problem. A learner who reads an explanation and does not then attempt a fresh question has understood nothing durable. Ask for the explanation, close it, and do three questions on the same idea without it open.

The use that harms, and how to spot it

The harmful use is the easiest one to fall into and the hardest to see from outside, because it produces the most impressive-looking exercise book. The tells are specific. Homework that is completed unusually fast and unusually neatly. Written answers in a register the learner does not speak in. A perfect exercise book alongside falling test marks. And, most reliably, a learner who cannot explain their own written answer when asked.

That last test is the one to run. Pick any completed answer and ask them to talk you through it. A learner who did the work can. A learner who copied it cannot, and the conversation that follows is a better intervention than any ban.

Household rules that hold

Take Kevin, a Grade 9 learner in Nakuru

Kevin's mother found his exercise books immaculate and his practice paper marks falling, and could not reconcile the two until she asked him to explain a completed Social Studies answer. He could not. He had been pasting questions into a free AI tool since the start of Term 2 and copying the answers in neat handwriting.

She did not ban the tool. She changed its direction. From that week, he was allowed to use it for exactly two things: turning his notes into flashcards and generating extra questions on whatever sub-strand he had just finished, with the answers scrolled out of sight. Homework answers had to be his own, and any of them could be explained on request.

The exercise books got messier. The practice paper marks recovered within a month and continued climbing, because for the first time the tool was producing practice testing rather than replacing it. Her summary was that the same phone had been doing his revision for him, and now it was making him do his own.

Common mistakes to avoid

• Banning it outright. The learner uses it anyway, in secret, in the harmful direction. Redirect instead.
• Letting it answer homework. The most common use and the one that produces nothing.
• Trusting its syllabus knowledge. It will describe sub-strands that are not in the KICD design with total confidence.
• Answers above the questions. The order on the screen decides whether retrieval happens.
• Using it for anything submitted for school-based assessment. That is the learner's own work by rule, and it counts towards the KJSEA composite.
• Treating AI marking as examiner marking. Useful for feedback on structure; not a substitute for the published marking scheme.
• Allowing it in the bedroom at night. It is a screen, and screens cost sleep.

Where it fits with everything else

AI-generated practice is a supplement to the real material, not a replacement for it. The KICD designs and the marking schemes remain the authority, which is why the study packs and the grade hubs for Grade 9 and Grade 6 matter: they give the learner the notes to build flashcards from and the marking schemes to check AI-written questions against. The wider guide to AI and homework covers the household side, and for the revision method itself, how to revise so it sticks is the foundation this article rests on. Ministry guidance on the use of digital tools in schools is published by the Ministry of Education.

Frequently asked questions

Which AI tool should we use?

Any of the widely available ones will generate questions and flashcards. For explanations in CBC terms, a tool built on the KICD designs, such as Somo, avoids the syllabus errors general tools make.

Is using AI for revision cheating?

Using it to generate practice is no different from using a revision book. Using it to produce work you submit as your own is malpractice, and for school-based assessment that has real consequences.

How do I know if the questions it writes are correct?

Check any answer that does not match the learner's against the notes or marking scheme before assuming the learner was wrong. Occasional errors are normal and are themselves a useful exercise in checking.

My child says everyone uses it for homework.

Many do, and their practice paper marks show it. The point is not that AI is forbidden; it is that it should be pointed in the direction that builds memory.

Can it mark a composition?

It can give useful feedback on structure and clarity. It cannot apply the examiner's scheme reliably, so treat its comments as a first read, not a mark.

Does this apply to IGCSE candidates too?

Entirely. The same rules work for generating Cambridge-style practice questions, with the same caution that the tool does not know what will be set and should be checked against the syllabus.

In summary

AI is a superb generator of practice questions and flashcards and a poor substitute for doing them. The direction of use decides everything: questions flow from the tool to the learner, answers flow from the learner to the page, and the marking scheme has the final word. Keep it off assessed work, check it against the design, keep it out of the bedroom, and ask your child to explain any answer at any time.

Used that way, the phone that has been quietly doing your child's revision for them becomes the most patient question-setter they will ever have.