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Posted on 02/11/2026 10:49:38 AM PST by nickcarraway
Students who use AI to solve STEM problem sets can evade detection, but they skip the mental work that builds understanding, says chemistry tutor Kelvin Ang.
During last year’s exam season, a student showed me her answer to the 2024 GCE A-Level Chemistry Paper 3 question. The task was straightforward: Draw three curly arrows to complete a reaction mechanism.
ChatGPT provided a diagram with clean lines, proper notation, and technical precision. But the arrows were completely wrong, misplaced in ways that would cost full marks.
Here’s another example from the same year. Students were asked why calcium fluoride does not dissolve in water, even though the thermodynamic conditions suggest that it should.
(Excerpt) Read more at channelnewsasia.com ...
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What percentage?
Your average state U? At least 85% of incoming students. Always gets a little better as you move up, but appalling for first-year students this year.
I could see AI useful for studying by presenting the information in easier to digest ways. Some people learn through pictures, others through reading, etc. I made it all the way through advanced calculus for engineering but the one class I absolutely hated and got the worst grades was statistics because the idiot teacher was only 1 page ahead of the class and had no idea about the hows or whys of the ambiguity of statistics. Having it explained differently would have been better.
BUT. As usual, it will just be copy and pasted in to essays and reports.
I mean for the ones you were teaching.
I was teaching at your average state U’s.
I’d add, it’s as if the national character was changed overnight. These students are extremely low in conscientiousness, as well as in honesty and diligence. They are addicted to their phones, have never been held accountable academically, and are nervous wrecks on top of that.
Here’s a great article assessing leading edge AI by someone who’s deeply immersed in it, how it’s effected his own work and what the AI future looks like and how to best prepare to deal with it.
A bit long, but well worth the time to read it.
https://shumer.dev/something-big-is-happening
Thanks.
Have used ChatGPT in several capacities; it is not to be feared it is very helpful, and yes it can be wrong and off-base but it can't ever replace humans.
Reason is: The key thing is what questions you want it to ask. That is an element of creativity that humans excel at.
Judgment is subtle and ChatGPT is pretty good at it, but reality always requires better judgment than AI can deliver.
Far and away the best thing that AI is great at is in being an indefatigable tutor with infinite patience.
Ask it the craziest question or most far-fetched connection; it will be very enlightening.
It never tires of answering the most hairsplitting and pedantic questions about very advanced branches of STEM.
It is the perfect aide for getting an online degree, or just trying to understand a paper.
I found something interesting with all the AI models in general use. They can regurgitate server DIMM population guidelines all day but if you ask a specific question like “For a HPE 2 processor Gen 11 DL385, which slots are used for 8x32GB DIMMs?” It’s going to get it wrong every time. Sometimes it even says to use slots that don’t exist on the server.
The question is, where the tool the agent is using is getting their data.
I know in Claude Code, you should put the technical documentation for the exact versions of the packages in a folder, and direct Claude Code to use the documentation in those specific folders.
Thanks for the link. That was very interesting reading.
I asked it questions on income elasticity and it was completely wrong.
Thank you, that was very informative. I will forward it to my son.
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