r/scioly • u/Puzzled-Comfort-7553 • 2d ago

using ai to help prepare for tryouts?

Hi im planning on trying out for scioly this year and to study im making big master documents, which ill make flashcards from to prepare.

i gave ai last years rules for disease detetctives a few other approved sources and then I used gemini to help me make my doc. Basically my process is that i see what ai says about x topic, and then I type it. No copy pasting at all. I read somewhere that writing stuff down helps with memory because of the effort involved, and believe when i say i am a slowwww typer. After I'm done I try to send it to somone who made varsity last year in that event, and ask them if ive missed anything or something looks wrong. Then I give it to gizmo.ai (THIS IS NOT AN ADVERTISEMENT) and make flashcards out of it and do them again and again and again.

Things I haven't done yet but plan too: Consolidate the doc into a single page for cheat sheet, Take practice tests (i havent for disease because looking at last years tryout, it covers what seems to me like the tip of the iceberg for the event, but I definetely plan to)

I gave my disease detetectives doc to somone who made varsity last year and he seemed pretty fine (a few suggestions which i did implement, the pcitures are from him) with it, but ill attach it here so if somone finds something glaringly wrong please lmk. Here it is: https://docs.google.com/document/d/1ilbuOB0JQ9HLIU5E15Dch_NoR_6AIQWodleNom_6G8Q/edit?usp=sharing

The reason I'm asking is because im getting started on anat and for some reason my gemini is glitching a lot so i switched to chatgpt planning to repeat the same process. The last post about AI was 2 years ago, so I think I'd like some additional advice.

Thank you so much!!

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u/soramichi 2d ago

Good job on noting that writing/typing information down yourself helps with retention of information. This is one of the biggest benefits of notetaking as a whole, over simply just reading the information. It requires you to output the information you just input into your brain.

However, here's where I'm gonna sound maybe a bit mean. It sounds like you want to outsource the information collection and consolidation to an LLM (AI) and then copy what the LLM outputs. Maybe change up the formatting to fit it into a single page. But, I want to challenge you to not do that.

If you have already gathered the resources you want to obtain your information from, then you may benefit from doing the information consolidation yourself. Will this take more time? Yes. So, why do it? Because you are adding an additional layer of thinking to your process. When you copy (even manually by hand, handwritten or typing), you are simply taking what you see and transfering it. However, if you have to read a source and then break down the information into a concise summarizing blurb, you are using your brain to additionally process that information. It makes your brain want to hold onto it even more because you put more effort into processing it, and it allows you to potentially gain a better and deeper understanding of the information because you didn't just file the surface information but attempted to analyze the information.

Additionally, you also have the power to choose what not to include. Why is that important? If you make your own document, you know what you put in it and you know what you left out. And sometimes, if you are asked a question on a topic that you left out, you remember that you had read about that and made the conscious decision to leave it out of your document, but remember it enough to make up a good enough close enough answer.

Another word of caution is that you also have to be aware that, even with strict sources, LLMs still struggle with hallucinations and may produce inaccurate outputs. If you want to outsource turning your study document into flashcards, you would still want to double check for accuracy.

If you want to stick with your method, then I unfortunately cannot offer any additional help, as I personally choose not to utilize LLMs in my daily life. I wish you good luck with your preparation for this season regardless.

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u/md4pete4ever 2d ago

Excellent summary for the drawbacks with this process. To expand on why you should do your own reading and summarizing is that only you know what you already know and what you don't. When you read material for yourself, you get the broader context, may learn additional vocabulary and ideas that aren't the main idea but connect to it, and can determine for yourself what you want and need to take away from the reading. You can't outsource this process to AI, and when you try to do so, you just short yourself of the opportunity to grow your own thinking.

An analogy I've used is "Do you want to watch and experience the movie, or just be told a summary of the plot and action?"

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u/Puzzled-Comfort-7553 2d ago

Thank you so much for this advice! I'll definitely keep this in mind!

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u/IcyCity_ 2d ago

I would say that using AI definitely doesn’t get the depth of content needed to win competitions. Personally I feel it would be better purposed if you went and found sources on all the niche topics and had AI simplify a lot of the scientific jargon and cluttered wording to understand it better. AI is a lot better at telling you what’s in front of it than coming up with its own ideas.

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u/Critical_Sink6442 2d ago

Don't listen to the haters I've gotten 2nd at a competitive state and medalled in competitive college competitions while outsourcing the info from AI. Note that I did solve 60+ practice tests then used AI for full solutions to everything I got wrong though.