Studying with AI without cheating: uses and prompts

Is using AI to study cheating?

On June 13, 2025, the French Ministry of National Education published a framework for the use of AI in education. It notes that some pupils use it to do their homework for them, and others to study, practice and go deeper. It asks teachers to explain that using generative AI for an assignment, “without explicit permission and without personal work of appropriation”, is fraud.

The same framework sets benchmarks by level: limited classroom use supported by the teacher from the fourth year of middle school (quatrième) on, then, in high school, independent use within a framework defined by the teacher. At university, the rules depend on the institution and sometimes on each course: look for the charter or the teacher's instructions.

A practical rule follows. For anything handed in and graded (homework, project file, thesis), follow the instructions and declare your use if you are asked. For your personal studying, nothing is handed in or graded, and the main risk is learning a mistake.

• Personal studying: having it quiz you, asking for another explanation, creating questions on your course notes
• To check first: using AI for work that is handed in and graded
• Fraud: handing in as your own a text produced by AI, without permission

Which uses of AI really help you study?

The most useful one is having it quiz you. Ask the assistant to ask one question at a time, wait for your answer, then correct you. This way you practice active recall, whose effect on memory several days later was measured by Roediger and Karpicke (2006).

When a passage resists, ask for another explanation: a concrete example, a comparison, a counterexample or the step you are missing. Then reword it in your own words, without looking at the answer. If you cannot, pick the conversation back up at the exact point where you get stuck.

You can also generate questions from your own course notes: starting from your teacher's chapter, they stay within their syllabus and vocabulary. That is Fichea's principle: the quiz and the flashcards start from the course notes you import, and when you ask Luna, the assistant, her answer relies on cited passages from your document. As a guide, a thirty-minute session can chain these uses:

• 5 minutes: write from memory what you know about the chapter, with no AI and no notes
• 10 minutes: have it quiz you, one question at a time
• 10 minutes: check in your course notes every missed or doubtful answer
• 5 minutes: turn your mistakes into flashcards to review

What are the risks of studying with AI?

The first risk is error. The ministry's framework itself cites the risk of inaccuracies, even false answers, called “hallucinations”. A wrong definition learned by heart costs more than a missing definition, because you then have to unlearn it.

Next comes drifting off the syllabus. Asked about the French Revolution in general, an assistant may answer with concepts your teacher has not covered or with different vocabulary. On exam day, what is expected is the content of your course: always give the chapter as a basis and ask it to flag what falls outside it.

Then there is dependence. If AI explains every exercise before you have tried it, you are training to recognize a solution without knowing how to produce it; search alone for five to ten minutes before asking for help. As for data, the framework reminds us that consumer services do not guarantee that what you enter will not be reused: do not paste personal data or confidential documents into them.

Which prompts should you use to study with AI?

These five prompts all start from your course notes, pasted or attached after them. Replace the parts in square brackets. They are for practicing and understanding; none of them writes work to hand in.

They have one thing in common: you produce an answer before seeing the correction, and the AI stays within the scope of your chapter. If your teacher allows AI for an assignment, follow the terms they set, which take priority over this advice.

• To get quizzed: “Here are my course notes on [chapter]. Ask me only one question at a time and wait for my answer. Then correct me by quoting the sentence from the notes that justifies the correction. Only ask questions whose answer is in these notes.”
• For another explanation: “I do not understand this passage: [passage]. Explain it differently, with a concrete example and a counterexample, without adding any concept that is not in my course notes. End with a question to check that I understood.”
• To generate questions: “From these course notes only, create ten questions of increasing difficulty: four on definitions, four on application and two that link two concepts. Give the answers separately, after a separator line.”
• To check what you remember: “Here is what I wrote from memory about [concept]: [your text]. Compare it with my course notes. List what is missing, what is wrong and what is right, without rewriting my text.”
• To understand a mistake: “I got this question wrong: [question and my answer]. Do not give me the solution right away. Ask me two questions that help me find the mistake myself, then explain it.”

How do you check an answer given by an AI?

Look in your course notes for the sentence or the page that says the same thing. If you cannot find it, treat the answer as doubtful until proven otherwise. Check dates, figures, units and proper names first.

Ask the assistant to point to the passage it relies on, then open it: a quote helps you check, but it does not guarantee that the explanation is right. For a fact that is outside your course notes, compare with another reliable source, such as your textbook or an official site, which the ministry's framework also recommends.

When the AI and your course notes contradict each other, your course notes are what counts for the exam. If the doubt remains, ask your teacher.

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