Six steps for turning AI into a genuine study partner — built on cognitive science. Any subject, any level, any exam board.
Learn the Full System →The problem is rarely effort. It is strategy: diving into content without knowing what the exam asks, skipping any honest diagnosis of what you do not know, revising passively, and never reviewing how the session went.
AI closes that gap. Personalised diagnostics, adaptive questioning, instant feedback and unlimited unseen material used to require a private tutor. The Velvet Method is the order you do them in.
Each step builds on the last. Pick your course and every prompt below rewrites for it — drawn from our free Prompt Library, which holds 100 prompts for each one.
Before you study anything, use AI to map the whole specification: every topic, how they connect, where the marks sit, and which command words keep coming up.
This gives you the framework that later detail attaches to — and it shows you where the marks actually are, so revision time goes where the paper rewards it, not where you feel most comfortable.
Before investing hours in revision, get AI to quiz you across every topic at once. It pushes harder where you are solid and digs deeper where you are not.
You end up with a ranked list of weaknesses instead of vague dread. And testing yourself before you study makes the studying that follows more effective — even when you get the answers wrong.
Fill the gaps with AI as a teaching partner, matching the format to the material: a process wants a diagram, a mechanism wants an analogy, vocabulary wants a game, a concept you almost understand wants the Feynman technique.
What matters is that you produce the explanation rather than read someone else's. Information you generate yourself is retained better than information you simply receive — the generation effect.
Feeling like you understand something is not the same as retrieving it under exam conditions. Get AI to set exam-style questions, mark your answers, and show you the marking points you missed.
Pulling something out of memory strengthens it far more than reading it again — the testing effect, one of the most reliably replicated findings in cognitive psychology.
Move from recall to application: unseen data, novel scenarios, cross-topic questions. In the sciences that means data and experimental interpretation; in the humanities, sources, arguments and interpretations.
Top grades come from applying what you know to material you have never seen before. Past papers run out. This does not.
Close the loop. Ask AI what you actually got wrong today, what is secure, and which methods worked — then have it build your next fortnight of review.
Spreading review across days beats cramming it into one session, one of the largest and most consistent findings in the learning research. Reflecting on how you learn is what turns one good session into a habit.
The flagship course walks through every step in 45 minutes of short videos — with worked examples, the full prompt library, and a Trust Check module on catching AI when it gets things wrong.
View the Course →Get the free Velvet Method Prompt Library — ready-made AI prompts for every step, every subject, every level. No spam, unsubscribe anytime.
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We separate the two deliberately. Findings are replicated experimental results. Frameworks are ways of organising teaching that are useful but are not, in themselves, evidence.
No. Nothing in the Velvet Method asks AI to write your answers. Every step asks it to question you, mark you, or set you problems — the thinking stays yours. Coursework is different: follow your school's AI policy, which usually requires you to declare any use.
No. Every prompt on this page works on the free tiers of ChatGPT, Claude and Gemini. Paid tiers allow longer sessions and file uploads, which help when you upload a specification at the View step, but nothing here depends on them.
Any — you name your board and specification inside the prompt, as the examples above do. It works for GCSE, A-Level, IB and AP. AI does get things wrong, so check what it tells you against your own specification and mark schemes; the course covers exactly how to do that.
Take the free Velvet Method Prompt Library with you: ready-made AI revision prompts for every subject and level.
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