CA Prep — the full guide

1. What CA Prep is

CA Prep is the part of CampusTutor built for one specific moment: the week or two before a continuous assessment, when you want to know exactly what to prepare. Instead of revising the whole course blindly, it lets you drill the questions your lecturer has actually set in past CAs — scoped to the topics covered so far this semester.

Open it from the sidebar at /ca-prep, or from a course workspace by clicking the CA Prep intent card.

2. Why this works

Most Nigerian lecturers reuse a tight bank of question patterns from year to year. Names change, numbers change, but the shape of the question — what it tests, how it's phrased, which formula it expects — barely shifts. If you know what they set in CA1 last year, you have a very strong signal about what they'll set in CA1 this year.

CA Prep turns that signal into a study tool. It collects past CA papers from students who have already taken the course, filters them to topics your lecturer has actually taught this semester, and lets you drill them under realistic timing. What you see is what they've asked before — not generic textbook questions.

3. CA Prep vs. Exam Practice

These two features look similar but solve different problems. Pick the one that matches what you're actually preparing for.

See the full Exam Practice guide at /help/exam-practice.

4. Plans & limits

CA Prep is a Plus feature. On the Free plan you can open the page, see the readiness ring and past CA list, but starting a drill or simulation will surface an upgrade prompt.

5. Tour of the CA Prep page

When you open /ca-prepyou'll see, from top to bottom:

• Course selector — if you're enrolled in more than one course. Pick the course you're prepping a CA for; everything below updates to that course.
• Topic Scope card — tick the topics your lecturer has actually taught this semester. This filters every CA question down to what's currently in scope.
• CA Readiness ring — a percentage showing how much of the in-scope CA material you've drilled to mastery.
• Past CAs panel — every past CA on file for this course, in order. Each row shows how many questions are in the bank and a Drill → button.
• Add Past CA Questions — the dashed-border button to upload a paper, PDF, or typed questions. More on this in section 11.
• Start CA Prep — the gradient button that opens the launcher dialog where you pick Quiz or Simulation.

6. Setting topic scope

The single most important step. CA Prep only includes questions from topics you've marked as covered, because asking you about material your lecturer hasn't taught yet would be useless noise.

1. Open the Topic Scope card.
2. Tick every topic your lecturer has actually taught — slides, lectures, or class discussions count. Skip topics that are on the syllabus but haven't been touched yet.
3. If a topic isn't in the list, type it into the free-text field at the bottom (e.g. "Fluid statics, Dimensional analysis"). The AI uses these names to match questions even when the official topic taxonomy is incomplete.

7. CA Readiness ring

The ring shows what percent of in-scope CA topicsyou've drilled to mastery. It updates after every CA Quiz or Simulation you finish.

• 0 – 39% (grey) — you're still early. Pick the most recent past CA and start drilling.
• 40 – 69% (light teal) — solid progress. Keep going, especially on topics where you missed marks.
• 70%+ (deep teal) — you've covered most of what your lecturer is likely to set. Run a full CA Simulation under timed conditions to confirm.

The reading is intentionally simple — it's not a grade prediction, it's a coverage check. A high ring means "you've seen most of the question shapes your lecturer reuses," not "you're guaranteed an A."

8. The Past CAs panel

Every past CA that's on file for this course, listed in order. Each row has:

• A week badge (Wk 4, Wk 8) if the uploader recorded when the CA took place — handy for matching against where your lecturer is now.
• A status dot: filled teal = questions are in the bank for this CA; hollow = the CA is logged but no questions have been uploaded yet.
• A question count showing how many questions are available to drill.
• A Drill → button that pre-selects this specific CA in the launcher.

If the list is empty for your course, you have two options: upload a past CA yourself (section 11), or start a CA Quiz anyway — the system will fall back to AI-predicted questions calibrated to your lecturer's style (section 13).

9. The two CA modes

CA Quiz

One specific past CA. Untimed. You pick a single CA from the schedule list and drill every question on it at your own pace. Best for the day or two after a topic was taught — you spot the questions that came from that topic and rehearse them.

CA Simulation

All in-scope past CA questions. 20-minute timer. The system pulls every question from CAs that touch your covered topics, mixes them, and runs them under a 20-minute clock to mirror real CA conditions. Best for the few days before the actual CA, sat in one go without your phone.

10. Starting a CA session

1. From the sidebar, click CA Prep — or from your course workspace, click the CA Prep intent card.
2. Confirm the right course is selected at the top.
3. Make sure your Topic Scope reflects what's actually been taught (re-tick if more topics have been covered since you last visited).
4. Either click the Drill → button on a specific CA row (this pre-selects the Quiz for that CA), or click Start CA Prep at the bottom to open the launcher dialog.
5. In the launcher, pick CA Quiz or CA Simulation. If you chose Quiz, pick which past CA from the inline list.
6. If you have Areas of Concentration set for this course, an "Prioritise my Areas of Concentration" checkbox appears. Tick it to weight the session toward those topics.
7. Click Start CA Quiz / Start CA Simulation. The assessment screen takes over.

The session itself uses the same assessment screen as Exam Practice — same timer, navigation grid, and question card behaviour. See sections 5 and 6 of the Exam Practice manual for the full UI breakdown.

11. Uploading past CA questions

The CA bank only exists because students upload what they have. Every paper you add helps the next batch of students sitting the same course. The flow has four steps:

Step 1 — Choose how to add

• Take or upload a photo — best for paper CA sheets the lecturer handed out. AI extracts the questions from the image.
• Upload a PDF — for scanned or digital CA papers. Same AI extraction, often higher accuracy than photos.
• Type questions manually — for questions you remember or have written down in a notebook. Slower but the most accurate.

Step 2 — Review extracted questions

For photo and PDF uploads, the AI processes the file and shows you every question it found. Read each one carefully and edit any text that came through wrong — handwriting, low-light photos, and scanned PDFs all introduce small errors. If the scan quality was low, you'll see an amber warning telling you to double-check.

If extraction returns nothing, switch to manual entry instead. A clearer photo (good lighting, paper flat, no shadow across the text) usually fixes the issue too.

Step 3 — Tag question type

For each question, pick the right type: MCQ, Short Answer, Essay, or Calculation. This controls how the system grades it and how much it contributes to mastery.

Step 4 — Add details

Finally, tell the system what CA this was from:

• CA label — "CA1 2023/2024", "Mid-Semester Test", or whatever the lecturer called it.
• Academic year — e.g. 2023/2024.
• Week number (optional) — which teaching week the CA was held in. Helps the system scope questions correctly when other students set their topic scope.
• When did this CA take place? — see section 12.

12. Logging a CA you just sat

On the final step of the upload sheet, you'll be asked "When did this CA take place?". The answer changes where the questions go:

• A previous semester — the questions go into the public CA prep bank so all students can drill them in future. This is what most uploads should use.
• This semester (I just sat it) — the questions go into your exam prep instead. They won't appear in next year's CA bank yet, but they'll inform your final-exam practice for this semester.

The reasoning is simple: if you just sat the CA, that paper is still active for your cohort, so dropping it into the public bank could give your coursemates an unfair advantage. Once the semester is over, the system rolls those questions into the next year's CA prep bank automatically.

13. AI-predicted fallback

If no past CA questions exist yet for your course, CA Prep doesn't leave you empty-handed. It generates a synthetic CA using the AI, calibrated to:

• Your covered topics (so it can't ask about untaught material).
• Your lecturer's typical question style for the course, where the system has signal from related submissions.
• Your institution and level (a 200L Engineering CA looks different from a 400L Engineering CA).

Sessions like these are tagged with an AI Predicted badge so you know the source. They're a reasonable substitute, not a replacement — the moment a real past CA gets uploaded, those become the priority.

14. Areas of Concentration

Some courses let you mark certain topics as Areas of Concentration— topics you've identified as worth extra attention (often because they carry more marks, or because you know you're shaky on them). If you have AOCs set for this course, the launcher shows a checkbox: "Prioritise my Areas of Concentration".

Ticking it weights the question selection toward those topics — you'll still see questions from other in-scope topics, but the mix tilts in favour of your AOCs.

15. Reading your results

CA Prep results use the same result screen as the rest of the assessment system. The most useful things to look at:

• Topic breakdown — your accuracy on each topic in the session. A topic where you scored under 50% is the highest-leverage place to study next.
• Areas to focus — concrete suggestions for what to revisit. We deliberately don't use the word "weaknesses."
• Per-question feedback — for short and long-answer questions, the AI grader returns a rubric table, what you did well, what needs work, and how to improve. (Same flow as the structured-answer grading in Exam Practice — see section 7 of the Exam Practice manual.)
• Updated readiness ring — back on the CA Prep page, the ring shifts to reflect your new mastery on the topics you just drilled.

Don't chase a perfect score — chase the topics where you scored lowest. One CA Quiz that surfaces three weak topics is worth ten CA Quizzes you aced.

16. How to get maximum results

1. Re-tick your Topic Scope every week. Lecturers move at different speeds — if your scope is stale, you'll be drilling material your lecturer hasn't taught yet.
2. Upload at least one past CA per course you're enrolled in. Even a single paper massively improves prediction quality, and helps every student in your department.
3. Start with Quiz, finish with Simulation. Use untimed Quizzes to learn the patterns; use one or two timed Simulations to confirm you can perform under pressure.
4. Run a fresh Simulation the day before the CA. Phone away, full 20 minutes, no checking notes. Whatever score you get is the most honest signal you'll get of your actual readiness.
5. After each session, drill the lowest-scoring topic in Tutor Mode. CA Prep tells you what you're weak on; Tutor Mode is where you fix it.
6. Log the CA you just sat. It helps your future self with exam prep, and your coursemates next year with CA prep.

17. FAQ

My course has no past CAs uploaded. What do I do?

Two options. (a) Start a CA Quiz anyway — the system will generate an AI-predicted CA calibrated to your level and your covered topics. (b) Better: upload one past CA yourself. Even a single paper transforms the quality of the bank for your course, and takes about three minutes if you have a photo.

Can I drill a CA from a different department or institution?

No. CA Prep only shows past CAs from your specific course at your specific institution — the whole point is that the questions reflect what your lecturer sets. Lecturers vary even within the same department; cross-institution mixing would dilute the signal.

Will my upload be public?

The questions you upload go into the CA prep bank for future students taking the same course at the same institution. Your name isn't attached to the questions in the drilling experience. You'll see a Student submission badge on unverified uploads, and a Verified badge after a moderator promotes them.

I logged a CA I just sat — when does it appear in the bank?

At the end of the current semester. The system holds "current semester" uploads in your private exam-prep pool until the term closes, then rolls them into next year's CA prep bank.

What file types and sizes does the uploader accept?

Photos (JPG, PNG, WEBP, HEIC), PDFs (scanned or digital), and manual typed entry. The size limit is 5 MB per upload — if your scan is larger, compress it or split it.

The AI extracted the wrong questions from my photo. Can I fix it?

Yes — you review every extracted question on Step 2 of the upload sheet and can edit each one before saving. If extraction is consistently poor, try a clearer photo (good lighting, paper flat, no shadows) or switch to manual entry.

Does CA Prep count toward my GPA forecast?

CA Prep performance feeds into your topic mastery, which is one of the six factors in the GPA forecast. So yes, indirectly — but it doesn't replace your actual recorded CA grades, which you log separately. See the GPA Tools manual for details.

Can I use CA Prep without a Plus subscription?

You can open the page, set your topic scope, and see what past CAs are on file. Starting a CA Quiz or CA Simulation requires Plus or above. Uploading past CA questions also requires Plus.

Why does CA Simulation refuse to start?

Most likely reason: you haven't ticked any topics in the Topic Scope card. Simulation needs at least one covered topic to scope its questions. The launcher shows an amber hint when this is the cause.