Why we turn the AI tutor off during tests
When we describe our AI tutor, the natural assumption is that more help is always better — that the ideal is a tutor whispering hints into every moment of a child's learning. We built the opposite into the product on purpose. During assessments, the tutor goes quiet. Here is the reasoning behind a decision that surprises people.
The difference between learning and proving
Learning and assessment are two different jobs. While learning, generous support is exactly right: hints, worked steps, gentle nudges back on track. But an assessment has a single purpose — to find out what the child can do unaided. The instant a tutor helps during that moment, the assessment stops measuring the child and starts measuring the child-plus-tutor.
A score is only useful if it tells you the truth. Help during a test does not raise a child's ability — it just hides where the real gaps are.
Why a contaminated score hurts the learner
It is tempting to think a higher score is harmless even if it is inflated. It is not. Our entire learning path depends on knowing what a child has genuinely mastered. If an assessment is propped up by hints, the system concludes a weak concept is strong, skips the revision that child needed, and the gap surfaces later — bigger, and harder to trace.
- Help during a test inflates the score but not the skill
- An inflated score tells our engine to skip revision the child actually needed
- The hidden gap resurfaces later, when it is harder to diagnose
Generous in learning, honest in assessment
So we draw a clear line. During practice and lessons, the tutor is as helpful as we can make it. During assessments, it steps back and lets the child show what they actually know. The result is a score we trust — and because we trust it, the personalised path built on top of it is far more accurate.
What this means for your child
It means the numbers you see reflect real understanding, not assisted performance. A slightly lower honest score is worth far more than a high assisted one, because the honest score is the one that actually moves your child forward. Sometimes the most helpful thing a tutor can do is know when to stay quiet.
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