You paste in your week 6 pharmacology slides, press a button, and twenty multiple-choice questions appear. You score 18. It feels great. Then the real exam asks the same content in a different shape and you're guessing.
That gap is what separates a good AI quiz generator from a bad one. The best one for you is the tool that sticks to your own material, writes wrong answers a half-prepared student would actually pick, and makes you write some answers in your own words. NotebookLM is the strongest free option if you only need multiple choice. Quizlet suits you if your class already lives there. The Study Mill (which I build) is the one I'd point you to if you want written answers marked and missed questions brought back on later days. A general chatbot works in a pinch, with more checking.
I'm biased, so I've tried to say plainly where each tool is better than mine.
First, test the quiz, not the logo
Every tool on this list can read a PDF. That's no longer the hard part. The hard part is writing questions that can't be beaten by pattern spotting.
When we audited every multiple-choice question in our own app, the right answer was option B almost three times out of four, and the longest option two thirds of the time. You could score well without reading the question. We fixed it, and the full write-up is here, but the lesson applies to every AI quiz, including ones you make yourself in a chatbot.
So before you trust any generator, run this on ten of its questions:
- Pick the longest option every time without reading the question.
- Then pick the same letter every time.
- If either beats about 40%, the quiz has a tell and your score is flattering you.
Then check three more things:
- Did every question come from your material? If your lecturer calls it "the ADPIE cycle" and the quiz calls it something else, or asks about a drug you never covered, the tool is filling gaps with general knowledge.
- Are there written answers, and who marks them? Multiple choice tests whether you can recognise the answer. Exams with short answers test whether you can produce it. A tool that only does multiple choice trains half the skill.
- Do wrong answers come back? One quiz is a check. Getting the questions you missed again in two days is what makes them stick.
The tools
NotebookLM: the best free option for multiple choice
Google's NotebookLM reads the sources you add (PDFs, Google Docs, slides, web links) and can generate interactive quizzes from them. You pick an option, it tells you whether you were right and explains why, and it stays close to the sources you gave it. It's free with a Google account, and Google offers it to schools through Workspace for Education.
Where it's better than The Study Mill: it handles a huge pile of sources in one notebook, it's free with no class limit, and its Audio Overviews are good for a quick listen.
Where it falls short for exam prep: it's a research notebook first, so there's no daily review of what you got wrong, no exam date planning, and no marking of written answers inside the quiz itself. I compared it more fully in NotebookLM alternatives.
Quizlet: practice tests where your flashcards already are
Quizlet can now build practice tests from uploaded notes and PDFs, not just from flashcard sets. If your whole cohort shares decks there, that matters. The catch is the paywall: free users get limited practice tests, and the fuller AI features sit on Quizlet Plus, which several pricing trackers list at around US$7.99 a month or US$35.99 a year at the time of writing. Even Plus is reported to cap practice tests each month, with a higher tier removing the caps.
Where it's better: the shared library, and a test mode most students already know.
Knowt: a free practice test on your own sets
Knowt lets you run practice tests on your own study sets for free, and it can turn PDFs and notes into sets with AI. The AI generation from files is capped each month on the free plan, so heavy weeks can hit the limit.
Where it's better: the most generous free flashcard and test workflow on this list if you're happy making or editing sets yourself.
Quizgecko: a dedicated quiz maker
Quizgecko is built around one job: turn text, files or a link into a quiz, with multiple choice, true or false and short answer formats. Teachers use it as much as students. Its free plan is small and review sites disagree on the exact limit, so I won't quote a number. Paid plans lift the caps.
Where it's better: lots of question formats and export options, handy if you're also writing quizzes for a tutorial group.
A general chatbot
You can paste notes into ChatGPT, Claude or Gemini and ask for ten questions. It's free and flexible. It's also where the answer tells are worst, because nothing shuffles the options for you, and it will happily drift beyond your notes. If you go this way, ask for equal-length options, a common misconception as each wrong answer, and a random correct letter. How to use ChatGPT to study has prompts that work.
The Study Mill: quizzes as part of the week
Upload slides, a PDF, Word notes, a photo of handwritten notes or a lecture recording, and each week becomes short lessons, flashcards, notes, a tutor, Walk & Learn audio and a quiz. The quiz mixes multiple choice with written answers that AI marks against your material, and tells you what your answer was missing. Options are shuffled by us rather than trusted to the model, and wrong options are written to be the mistakes students really make.
Questions you miss come back in your daily review. If you've seen a set too many times, Swap for new ones replaces it with a fresh set. Set an exam date and it plans revision around your timetable.
Where it's weaker: no shared library of other students' decks, and the free plan covers 2 classes. Pro is A$7.99 a month or A$49 a year, with unlimited classes, exam mode and cram sheets, and half price with a .edu or .edu.au email.
Quick comparison
| Sticks to your material | Written answers marked | Missed questions come back | Free plan | |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| NotebookLM | Yes | No | No | Free |
| Quizlet | Mostly | Limited | Through study modes | Limited tests |
| Knowt | Mostly | No | Spaced repetition on sets | AI from files capped |
| Quizgecko | Mostly | Short answer format | No | Small |
| Chatbot | Check it yourself | If you ask | No | Yes |
| The Study Mill | Yes | Yes | Daily review | 2 classes |
Which one should you pick?
If your exam is all multiple choice and money is tight, start with NotebookLM and run the longest-option test on it. If your class already shares Quizlet decks, stay there. If your exams have short answers, case questions or anything where you need to explain a mechanism (most nursing, law and psychology units), pick a tool that makes you write and marks what you wrote. That's where a quiz stops being a confidence boost and starts being practice.
Whatever you choose, the tool matters less than the habit. Testing yourself beats rereading, and spacing those tests across days beats doing them all at once. Both findings are about as solid as learning research gets.
Try it on one lecture
Upload one lecture to The Study Mill, take the quiz, and try to beat it by picking the longest option. Then answer the written questions and see what it says you missed.
Other apps' prices and features are as published in October 2026 and change often. Check their own pricing pages.