Brady Long Profile picture
May 13 15 tweets 3 min read Read on X
I collected every NotebookLM prompt that went viral with students and researchers.

These turn your PDFs, lecture slides, notes, and textbooks into study guides, mock exams, podcasts, flashcards, and private tutors.

13 copy-paste prompts. Zero fluff. Image
1. The Master Study Guide

"Create a comprehensive study guide from these sources. Include: key concepts, definitions, formulas, real-world examples, and 10 practice questions with answers. Organize by topic, not by source."

Turns 200 pages of lecture slides into one clean doc.
2. The Mock Exam

"Generate a 25-question mock exam from these sources. Mix multiple choice, short answer, and 2 long-form questions. Match the difficulty of a university final. Provide an answer key with explanations at the end."

Better than any past paper.
3. The Feynman Tutor

"Explain [topic] to me like I'm 12. Then explain it like I'm an undergrad. Then like I'm a PhD student. Use only the sources I uploaded. Flag where simplifications break down."

3 levels of depth from the same material.
4. The Socratic Tutor

"Don't give me answers. Ask me questions one at a time about [topic] using only my sources. After each answer, tell me what I got right, what I missed, and ask a harder follow-up."

This is how Oxford tutors actually teach.
5. The Flashcard Factory

"Generate 50 Anki-ready flashcards from these sources. Format as Q on one line, A on the next. Cover definitions, formulas, dates, mechanisms, and one 'why does this matter' card per topic."

Paste straight into Anki. Done.
6. The Connection Mapper

"Find every concept in these sources that connects to [topic X]. Show me how they relate. Include surprising or non-obvious links the textbook didn't explicitly draw."

This is where real understanding happens.
7. The Exam Predictor

"Based on these lecture slides and past papers, predict the 10 most likely exam questions. Rank by probability. Explain why each is likely based on emphasis, repetition, or examiner patterns."

Scary accurate when you upload past papers too.
8. The Paper Decoder

"Summarize this paper in 4 parts: what they did, how they did it, what they found, why it matters. Then list 3 limitations the authors downplayed and 3 follow-up questions a reviewer would ask."

Turns 30-page papers into 5-minute reads.
9. The Podcast Brief

Before hitting Audio Overview, paste this:

"Focus the podcast on [specific topic]. Make it debate-style. One host should challenge the other's interpretations. Target an audience that already knows the basics."

Default podcasts are mid. This fixes them.
10. The Comparator

"Compare and contrast [concept A] and [concept B] using only my sources. Build a table: definition, mechanism, use case, limitations, common confusion points. End with the one sentence that captures the core difference."

Killer for biology, econ, and law.
11. The Weakness Finder

"Quiz me on [topic] with 15 questions of increasing difficulty. Track which ones I get wrong. At the end, tell me exactly which subtopics I'm weakest on and what to re-read in my sources."

Diagnostic > brute force studying.
12. The Lit Review

"Across all uploaded papers, identify: shared findings, contradictions, methodological differences, and gaps in the literature. Cite which paper says what. End with the 3 open questions the field hasn't answered."

Saves grad students weeks.
13. The One-Page Cheat Sheet

"Compress everything in these sources into a single-page cheat sheet. Include only what would appear on a final exam. Use bullet points, formulas, and diagrams. No filler sentences."

The night-before-exam prompt.
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More from @thisguyknowsai

Jun 9
After 3 years of using AI tools, I can say NotebookLM is the one that permanently changed how I learn.

So here are 10 prompts that extract more insight from one PDF than most people get from a full year of reading:
Prompt 1: The Hidden Argument Extractor

"What is the single strongest claim this document makes? What evidence supports it and what does the author quietly assume without proving?"

Most summaries tell you what a paper says. This tells you whether to believe it.
Prompt 2: The Blind Spot Scanner

"What important questions does this document NOT answer? What did the author avoid, oversimplify, or leave out entirely?"

This is how researchers think. Now you think like one too.
Read 13 tweets
Jun 6
Patrick Winston taught at MIT for 50 years.

His most famous lecture was not about code or math or engineering.

It was about how to make people actually listen to you.

Here are the 10 lessons that will change how you communicate forever:

1/ Never start with a joke Image
Winston was direct about this in a way that made audiences uncomfortable.

Everyone starts with a joke. It is the default move for anyone who is nervous and wants the room on their side before they earn it.

The problem is that a joke in the first 60 seconds puts the audience in the wrong mental state. They are evaluating your humor before they understand why they are in the room.

Winston said start by telling people exactly what they are going to learn.

Prime the pump before you pour anything in.

Give them a reason to stay in their seats. Then earn the laugh.
2/ Make the empowerment promise

Winston called it the empowerment promise and he said it had to land within the first 60 seconds.

Not a summary of what you are about to say. Not an agenda slide. Not a title.

A specific answer to the question every person in the room is asking silently before you open your mouth.

What will I be able to do after this that I could not do before?

The moment you answer that question, the audience stops deciding whether to pay attention and starts paying it.

Everything before the empowerment promise is noise.
Read 13 tweets
May 29
Claude Opus 4.8 can now write like a $20,000/month ghostwriter.

But only if you stop asking it to “write a post.”

Here are 12 prompts that turn rough thoughts into viral X threads 👇
Step 1. Pull the thread out of the brain dump.

Act as my ghostwriter. I'm going to brain dump a messy thought. Don't write anything yet. Read it, then ask me 5 sharp questions a great interviewer would ask to pull out the specific stories, numbers, and contrarian beliefs hiding inside it. Here's the dump: [paste raw thoughts].
Step 2. Find the angle. Not the topic, the angle.

From everything I just told you, pull out 3 possible thread angles: one contrarian, one how-to, one story-based. For each one, tell me what belief it challenges or what problem it solves. Don't pick yet, just lay them out.
Read 13 tweets
May 18
SHOCKING: Claude has a secret mode called "Research Accelerator."

It turns a 60-page paper into a literature review, a counterargument, and 10 research questions in under 5 minutes.

Here are the 13 prompts grad students are quietly using to finish in half the time: Image
Prompt 1: Instant Literature Review

"Read this paper and identify 5 key claims the author makes. For each claim, tell me what prior research it builds on and what gap it claims to fill."

Paste the abstract + introduction. Claude maps the entire intellectual lineage in 90 seconds.
Prompt 2: The Steel Man

"Steelman the weakest argument in this paper. Make the best possible case for it even if the data doesn't fully support it."

This one is dangerous. It'll show you exactly where reviewers will push back before you submit.
Read 15 tweets
May 5
After 6 months of running a "weekly review" with Claude, I've made fewer decisions and gotten more done than the previous 5 years combined.

Here are the 8 prompts that drive the whole system: Image
Prompt 1: The Friction Audit

"Look at my last 7 days of calendar, notes, and tasks. Identify the 3 places I lost the most energy. Tell me which ones were necessary and which ones I should have killed on Monday."

This single prompt has saved me 6+ hours every single week.
Prompt 2: The Decision Inventory

"List every decision I made this week that took longer than 10 minutes. Categorize each as reversible or irreversible. For the reversible ones, tell me why I overthought them."

I went from 40+ decisions a week to under 12.
Read 10 tweets
May 4
A Yale behavioral scientist published a journaling protocol called "Prospective Hindsight Prompting."

You write from the perspective of your future self looking back at this year.

It's the single most useful thing I've done with Claude.

Here's the exact prompt:
First, why this works when normal journaling doesn't.

Regular journaling asks: what do I want?

Prospective Hindsight asks: what would I regret not doing?

Those are completely different questions. And your brain answers them completely differently.

The research behind it comes from Gary Klein's work on pre-mortems. When you imagine failure has already happened, your brain stops defending your plan and starts telling you the truth about it.

Yale researchers took that same mechanism and flipped it for personal clarity.

Write as if the year already happened. Write as if you already lived it.

The honesty that comes out will shock you.
Here is the exact prompt I use inside Claude:

Prompt:

"You are my future self writing a private journal entry on December 31st of this year. The year went remarkably well. Not perfectly, but the things that mattered most actually happened. Write a 400-word reflection in first person. Name 3 specific things I did that made the difference. Name 1 thing I almost didn't do but pushed through anyway. Name 1 thing I let go of that I was holding too tightly. Write it like a real journal entry, not a motivational speech. Use specific details. Make it feel true."

Read it twice. The second time, underline anything that surprises you.

Those are your real priorities. Not the ones on your to-do list.
Read 9 tweets

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