Turn source material into a study guide and useful quiz
A quiz is useful when a wrong answer teaches you something. It is less useful when the answer key has invented the rule.
What you'll make
a short study guide from one source and three practice questions, each with one defensible answer and an explanation you have checked.
What you'll need
Gemini Notebook (the product Google called NotebookLM until July 2026), a notebook you own or can edit, and one short current source your organisation lets you use there. Allow about 20 minutes. If Studio study aids aren’t available to you, the same prompt works in the notebook chat.
Example result.
Key decision 1 (section 2): a submitted room request is not a booking. Use the room only after the coordinator confirms.
Q1. You asked for Cedar and have heard nothing. What should you do next? Answer: Ask the coordinator to confirm before using Cedar. Why: submission isn’t a booking (section 2). “Assume it’s fine after 24 hours” is wrong because the policy sets no response time.
1. Choose a small learning goal
Pick one practical decision the source teaches, name the audience and say what they should be able to do afterwards. A two-page policy makes a good quiz. It doesn’t make a training course.
Read the source yourself first and write down the three things a learner must get right. These are your answer key for checking the generated one.
Why this works: if you only read the source after the quiz exists, the quiz quietly becomes your idea of what matters.
What you should see: three short notes in your own words, each pointing to a section of the source.
2. Generate the guide and quiz
In your notebook, select only the relevant source. In the Studio panel, open Reports and choose Study guide. For questions, click the pencil icon on Quizzes to customise it before generating: choose a difficulty and paste the prompt below into its prompt field. If you’d rather see the whole answer key at once, paste the prompt into the notebook chat instead.
Using only [selected source], make a short study guide for [audience] who need to [learning goal]. Explain the three key decisions and the source section for each. Then write three practice questions with correct answers, explanations and supporting passages. Include one application question that asks the learner to use a rule in a short scenario. Do not test facts that are absent from the source. Make sure each single-answer question has only one defensible correct answer under its stated conditions.[selected source] is the document’s name in the notebook. [audience] and [learning goal] are the people and the decision from step 1.
Why this works: the last line forces the model to state the conditions a question depends on. An application question tests whether someone can use the rule, rather than recognise its most distinctive word.
What you should see: a guide with three decisions and section references, and three questions. In Studio quizzes, Explain opens the reasoning for an answer and Hint helps with a question.
3. Review the answer key before you study or share it
For each question, find the supporting passage. Check the correct answer includes its conditions and that every other option really is wrong under the question’s wording. A choice can be wrong for this scenario without being wrong everywhere.
Remove any question whose answer depends on a date, owner or exception the source doesn’t state. Check the guide and the key agree. To see where an answer came from, check the cited passage rather than trusting the explanation.
Why this works: a quiz key gets read as fact. It needs the same source check as a summary, option by option.
What you should see: each question marked keep, fix or remove, with the passage that decides it.
Check the result
- Every correct answer matches a passage, including its conditions and exceptions.
- No question tests something the source doesn’t say, such as a response time or a named person.
- No option gives the answer away by repeating the source’s wording.
- Your three notes from step 1 are all covered.
The usual failure: a question with two defensible answers. It looks fine until you read the exception: the key marks one option correct, but another is also right under a condition the question never fixed. Spot it by asking, for each wrong option, “is there a case in the source where this would be right?”
Question [number] has this problem: [two defensible answers / a fact not in the source / an answer cue]. Replace it with a source-supported application question for the same learning goal. State every condition needed to answer it. Give the answer, an explanation and the supporting passage, and explain why each other option is wrong in this scenario. Leave the other questions unchanged.Put the question’s number in [number] and pick the problem that applies. Then answer the new question yourself before keeping it.
Worked example: an expenses quiz with two right answers
Fictional example.
Source: Expenses policy, section 4
4.1 Meals up to £50 per person can be claimed with a receipt.
4.2 Meals over £50 per person need a manager's approval before the event.
4.3 Exception: client meals up to £80 per person can be claimed with a receipt and the client's name.The generated question:
Q2. Priya spends £65 per person on dinner. What does she need to claim it? A. A receipt only. B. A receipt and her manager’s approval before the event. C. Nothing; meals are always covered. Key: B.
The check finds the problem. If the dinner was with a client, A plus the client’s name is enough under 4.3, so B isn’t the only defensible answer. The question never said who the dinner was with.
After the repair prompt:
Q2. Priya spends £65 per person on an internal team dinner. What does she need to claim it? Answer: a receipt and her manager’s approval before the event (4.2). Why not A: a receipt alone covers meals up to £50, or client meals up to £80 (4.1, 4.3). This was an internal dinner over £50.
- The condition is now in the question. “Internal team dinner” closes the exception that made two answers defensible.
- The explanation names both thresholds. A learner who picked A learns exactly which rule they confused.
- Option C was dropped. “Always covered” was easy to rule out, so it taught nothing.
Task kit for this job: Download (ZIP) · Reusable instructions
Go deeper
Learn from the wrong answer
When you miss a question, write down which distinction you got wrong and reread that passage. Then ask for one new scenario that uses the same rule in a different setting, and explain the answer in your own words before checking it. A quiz score on its own doesn’t show you can apply the policy.
I got question [number] wrong because I confused [rule A] with [rule B]. Write one new scenario, in a different setting, that tests the same distinction. Don't show the answer until I reply with mine.[rule A] and [rule B] are the two rules you mixed up, in your own words.
Use flashcards for terms, quizzes for decisions
Flashcards suit definitions and thresholds: “What’s the limit for a client meal?” Quizzes suit decisions with conditions: “Which approval does this dinner need?” If a flashcard needs a paragraph on the back, it’s a quiz question. In Studio, customise Flashcards with the pencil icon and ask for one term or threshold per card, with the section number on the back.
Before sharing with a team
Keep draft learning material separate from any official training pack. Ask the source owner to review anything people will rely on, and check who will be able to open the notebook and what they will see before you share it.