Students are starting to discover how AI study tools can be used to boost grades by learning more efficiently, writing quicker, and retaining more information in a fraction of the time.
These tools are so effective that it is causing major controversy and disruption at all levels of the education system.
Whatever your opinion on the use of AI tools, there is one thing that is clear. They aren’t going away. Education has been fundamentally disrupted, and students have no option but to learn how to use these tools to keep up with their peers.
Here are six AI study tools that every student should know about.
Caktus: A hub of study tools
Caktus is a hub of various tools students can use to heavily reduce the time they spend reading, writing, doing Maths, learning a language, or even coming up with excuses for being late to class.
It’s already being used by over 800,000 students. Here are some of Caktus’ best tools:
- Essay writer: This tool is shockingly good. Simply tell Caktus what you need to write an essay on, and it will spit out a comprehensive essay with all the relevant citations.
- Book summarizer: Enter the name of any book, and Caktus will summarize it in front of your very eyes.
- Question solver: You can ask Caktus literally any question about anything, and it will spit out a high-quality answer.
- Class absence excuses: For those of you with a questionable moral compass, you can even get Caktus to think of an excuse for missing your class or being late.
Perplexity: Summarize tricky topics
Perplexity is a powerful AI tool that condenses difficult topics and questions into a neat 4-5 sentence summary. If you find a particular subject hard (let’s say History for example), then you can ask Perplexity your exact question and it will spit out a concise summary. It provides all its sources so you can do further reading, and you can even ask further questions to dig into the specifics.
Plus, it’s completely free. It’s the perfect substitute for a tutor if you can’t afford one.
Consensus: Find data points for your essays
If you write a lot of essays, you will know the importance of finding evidence and data points (often from research studies) to back up your arguments. You will also know that finding this evidence and data can be time-consuming to the extreme. Consensus is the solution.
Simply type in the point you are trying to make, and Consensus will show you what research studies say about it. For example, I typed in “Study tools are helpful for students”, and Consensus found numerous research studies that prove tools can be used to “enhance the educational experience” and “lessen the burden on instructors”.
Glasp: Highlighter for your computer
This tool is one of my particular favorites. It’s called Glasp, and it lets you highlight and take notes of anything you read online.
When you are researching and writing an essay, you are likely to read hundreds (if not thousands) of resources online before you actually start writing. Keeping notes for this kind of task is a nightmare. Until Glasp.
It lets you highlight and take notes on any webpage. Those notes are all saved in one place, so you can easily revisit and search your notes.
Another incredible thing about this tool is that it’s a social app. People can access your Glasp page to see what you have been reading, and your notes on those particular topics. You can also follow other extraordinary minds to see what they are reading and thinking.
Scholarcy
Scholarcy is another awesome tool that can save you hundreds of hours researching and reading articles. It is a summarizer tool that breaks down huge essays, reports, and books into bite-sized sections. This has two key time-saving benefits:
- Quickly assess if the article is relevant: Scholarcy’s summaries allow you to quickly assess how important any document is to your work. That means you can avoid many wasted hours reading through irrelevant information.
- Extract key facts and figures: Scholarcy helps you to speed-read an article, follow the arguments, and take away the main points in minutes. It allows you to find the key facts and figures without having to read through the entire document.
Quillbot
Quillbot is a paraphrasing tool that students are using to rewrite text in different words to avoid triggering ChatGPT and plagiarism detection tools. All you need to do is take the text written by ChatGPT, stick it into Quillbot and it will rewrite it for you.
It has some other less dubious use cases too. It can take any given text and rewrite it in simpler terms or, in a more formal way. It can even take your text and expand or shorten it depending on what you want to use the text for.
Closing Thoughts
Students are using AI study tools to write essays, understand complex topics, and even do their homework. It’s completely revolutionizing the educational system.
A cynical view is that lazy students can now use these tools to avoid thinking for themselves, and spend more time brainlessly scrolling TikTok. An optimistic view is that students can use these tools as a tutor and guide to boost their productivity and find information quicker.
The realistic view is that these tools are going nowhere, and those that learn how to use them will outperform their peers and competitors in almost all walks of life.
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