Turn a question bank into AI tutoring lessons

Audit the source before generating explanations

Question banks often accumulate over several courses or exam cycles. Before converting one into lessons, check for duplicate items, inconsistent answer keys, missing diagrams and references to material that is no longer taught. Review a small topic set first rather than uploading a large unexamined collection.

Choose material your team can explain and maintain. Give each item a stable identifier so a correction can be traced to the original question. If a source is scanned, inspect symbols, superscripts, minus signs and labels after extraction; a small transcription error can change the problem.

Keep the intended course level and prerequisites visible. A solution that introduces an unfamiliar shortcut may answer the question correctly while making the tutoring lesson harder to follow.

Prepare teaching fields alongside each question

These fields form an editorial checklist; they are not a claim about the import format of every platform. Confirm the supported format and how a tutor uses the supplied material before preparing a large migration.

A worked multiple-choice question

Consider this illustrative item: “A shirt costs ₹800 before a 25% discount. What is its price after the discount?” The options are ₹200, ₹600, ₹775 and ₹1,000. The reviewed solution is: 25% of ₹800 is ₹200, so the remaining price is ₹800 − ₹200 = ₹600.

A learner selecting ₹200 may have calculated the discount correctly but answered a different question. Selecting ₹775 may indicate subtracting 25 as a currency amount. Treat those as hypotheses. Ask the student to explain their choice before deciding which teaching response fits.

1. First hint: “Does the question ask for the amount saved or the amount still paid?”
2. Second hint: “Find one quarter of ₹800, then decide what to subtract.”
3. Worked explanation: show the discount and remaining price as separately labelled quantities.
4. Independent check: ask for the price of a ₹500 item after a 20% discount; the answer is ₹400.

The important distinction is between the reduction and the remaining amount. A lesson that only repeats the correct option misses an opportunity to resolve that confusion. Include the unit and the meaning of each intermediate value in the explanation.

Build a short lesson around the question

Start by stating the objective: distinguish a percentage reduction from the quantity left afterwards. Check that learners can find a simple percentage. Work through the reviewed example, invite a response and offer the planned support if needed. Finish with a new problem.

The IES practice guide recommends alternating worked solutions with problem-solving exercises. The sequence here applies that idea to a question-bank lesson; it does not imply that generating more questions automatically improves learning.

After a test, choose the relevant lesson using the learner's attempted working. Our mock-test analysis guide explains how to distinguish a conceptual gap from an execution slip or time-management problem.

Review the actual tutoring exchange

Test a correct response with different wording, each wrong option and a student who asks why the rule works. Check that the feedback remains consistent with the reviewed solution. Verify that a missing diagram or unreadable equation does not leave the explanation referring to something the learner cannot see.

Maintain a small review log containing the item identifier, issue, corrected source and release decision. When an answer key changes, revisit any lesson and assessment item that depends on it. Begin with one topic whose explanations a subject teacher can check thoroughly.