Turn Lecture Slides Into Practice Problems in Ritsu

In this tutorial you'll turn lecture slides into practice problems in Ritsu. One deck becomes a problem set, and you solve one of its hardest problems in the order that teaches: your attempt, feedback on what it missed, one hint, a second attempt, and the worked solution last. Our recorded run took about 15 minutes, a warm-up problem included; your own attempts will take longer. You need the slides saved as one PDF and a free account.

The Problem Set Generator is the Ritsu tool that maps a document into knowledge units, writes problems for each unit from warm-up to stretch, and grades the solution you write.

Many courses hand out slides and few problems to practise on. One learner on r/MLQuestions put it plainly about a dense graduate course: "Prof didn't give any practice exercises at all and the lectures were so dense." (thread) This lesson makes the missing problems from the slides themselves.

Try it in Ritsu as you read: Start Learning Free

Before you start

• The deck as one PDF. Most slide apps can save or export a deck as a PDF, one page per slide. The drop zone takes files up to 20 MB, and the Free plan reads up to 40 pages per source; if your deck runs past 40 slides, export it in parts.
• No deck at hand? Open section 6.5, Enzymes, of OpenStax's free Biology 2e and save it as a PDF from your browser's print menu. The screenshots below use an eight-slide deck we wrote from that section, on enzymes and temperature.
• Paper and a pen, or a blank document. You will write two full attempts.
• A free account. Your set, your attempts and their grades are kept in it.

Already stuck on an exercise you were given, rather than short of problems? Solve textbook exercises with Ritsu is the lesson for that.

The screenshots come from our recorded run on October 15, 2026. Scores, counts, times and file sizes on screen are painted out, and so is one problem title in the left column that displayed as raw code.

Step 1: Add your slides and a focus line

Open the Problem Set Generator page and press Make a Set From My Material; sign up or sign in if asked. On the page headed Problem Set, leave File selected and drop your PDF onto Drop file or click to browse. Then type one line in the box above: what the problems should focus on. The language you write it in is the language your problems come in. Ours read "Exam on Friday — test me on the whole deck." Leave the settings line under the box (Mixed · All types · Default) as it is.

You'll see your file's name under the box, marked Uploaded, and Create Problems lit.

If Create Problems stays grey: make sure the file shows Uploaded and the focus box has a line in it.

Step 2: Create the set and read its map

Press Create Problems. While it works, the page shows Forging your problem workbook: it maps the deck into knowledge units first, then writes each problem and solves it before showing it to you. Our eight slides took about three minutes.

You'll see Workbook ready and the units in order, each problem tagged with a type (Conceptual, Calculation, Case study, Error-analysis and more) and a level: Warm-up, Core or Stretch. Our deck came back as four units and 11 problems. Several put the slides' ideas into situations the slides never show: a hospital patient with a 105 °F fever, fish living in Arctic water, a boiled egg.

If a unit has only one or two problems: that can be expected. The product page says that where the material is thin, it writes fewer problems instead of padding; ours came back with two problems in three units and five in the fourth.

Step 3: Open a Stretch problem

Pick one problem marked Stretch in the list; ours was The 105°F Emergency, a case study. If your set has no Stretch problem, take one marked Core. Press Start Learning; on the overview that opens, click that problem's title in the left column.

You'll see the problem, its type and level, a one-line aim in italics, and two buttons: Solve and History. Read the problem once and leave everything else closed.

Step 4: Choose DIY with one hint and two attempts

Press Solve. In the Configure /solve window, under MODE, click DIY (Write & Grade). Then choose 1 Hint and 2 attempts, and press OK. In DIY you write the whole solution, it comes back graded, and the worked solution comes after your tries.

You'll see the thread start with /solve --mode="diy", then a Your move. card that asks for your full solution, reasoned step by step, with Hint 1 closed below it. No solution anywhere on screen.

Step 5: Write your full attempt and send it

Close the PDF of your slides so you answer from memory. Write your whole reasoning in the box at the bottom, not just a final answer. Shift+Enter starts a new line; Enter sends, so press it only when you're done. Our first attempt made a typical mistake on purpose: it said the hotter enzymes would simply work faster, and that the proteins would be fine because the amino acid chain "is still all there."

You'll see NOT QUITE — REFINE YOUR ANSWER and a sentence or two on what your attempt got right and what it missed. Ours: "The answer correctly identifies that heat increases molecular movement, but fails to recognize the critical concept of protein denaturation at high temperatures." Below it: Take another run at it.

If your first attempt was right: you'll see Excellent! instead. Go to step 7.

Step 6: Open the hint and try again

Open Hint 1 only if the feedback alone doesn't get you moving. Ours read: "Recall the 'optimum' for human enzymes." Write the corrected solution in the box and send it.

You'll see Excellent! with a FEEDBACK line, an EXPLANATION of how your answer compares with the model solution, and a Show Solution button. Your best attempt is the one that counts.

If the second attempt misses too: the solution is shown after your last try. Read it, then solve the problem again tomorrow from an empty box (step 7 shows how).

Step 7: Open the solution last

Press Show Solution and read it against your second attempt, line by line.

You'll see the worked solution in steps, quoting your slides' own words where it can, then TAKEAWAYS: INTUITION, LESSONS LEARNED and APPLICATIONS. NEXT PROBLEM at the bottom moves you on. To solve this one again tomorrow, open it and press Restart, then New version: your attempt moves to History, nothing is lost, and you choose a mode again.

What you just did

You solved a problem before you saw its solution, and the feedback went at the gap in your own attempt instead of re-teaching the whole topic. Related research points the same way: Tanmay Sinha and Manu Kapur (2021) pooled 53 studies and found that trying problems before being taught beat the reverse on average, a moderate effect, except for the youngest learners, second to fifth graders; here you try before the worked solution, a similar order rather than the one those studies tested. Producing the answer yourself is the same move as active recall, which rereading slides never asks of you.

FAQ

Q: Can AI turn my lecture slides or PDF into practice questions?

Yes. Several tools generate questions from a document. Ritsu's Test Maker builds a complete test from any PDF, slide deck or other document, and inside the tutor each question cites the page it came from, so you can check the source. Attempt the questions before you look at any answers. A problem set is the other kind of practice: one problem at a time, with help in stages, which is what this lesson builds.

Q: Can I upload the .pptx file instead of a PDF?

Yes. The drop zone lists Slides among the file types it takes, and the help center says that from a PowerPoint file Ritsu reads the slide text and speaker notes. We ran this lesson with a PDF export; supported file types lists what is read from each format.

Q: Can I see the solution right away?

Yes. Nothing is locked: Show Solution is one of the modes in Configure /solve, and you can type "show solution" at any time. The lesson puts your attempt first because the attempt is what makes the solution useful.

Q: Will a second set repeat the first?

Not as a copy. A new set is generated fresh from the same knowledge units rather than drawn from a fixed list, so you get different problems on the same material, though a problem can still look familiar.

Q: Which subjects does this work for?

Material that can carry a real problem. The product page names maths, physics, chemistry, engineering, algorithms, economics and statistics. Our biology deck, mostly concepts and one graph, still produced six types of problem, from calculation to error analysis.

Next steps

Try it in Ritsu on your next lecture: export the deck, add it with one focus line, and attempt a Stretch problem before you open anything else. Start Learning Free Free forever · No credit card · No time limit

• Master a lecture deck: learn the deck itself, slide by slide, before you practise on it.
• Solve textbook exercises with Ritsu: the next tutorial, for an exercise you're already stuck on.
• In the help center: the /solve command inside a study session.

Sources

• Sinha, T., & Kapur, M. (2021). When problem solving followed by instruction works: Evidence for productive failure. Review of Educational Research, 91(5), 761–798. https://doi.org/10.3102/00346543211019105
• OpenStax. Biology 2e, section 6.5, Enzymes (CC BY 4.0). https://openstax.org/books/biology-2e/pages/6-5-enzymes
• Ritsu. Problem Set Generator, product page and FAQ, read October 18, 2026. https://ritsu.ai/products/problem-set-generator

By Ritsu Team · Last updated October 18, 2026