Review Quizlet: A Handy Cheatcode or Utter Disappointment?

Quizlet’s AI-Powered Tutoring: No Match for Human Experts

Is Quizlet worth it? For all of you wondering if Quizlet’s Q-Bot can help you write essays, we have some bad news. The chatbot outright refuses to help you write essays:

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So, we decided to tell the chatbot that our study goal was to understand how the cardiovascular system functions. The rest of the conversation was quite frustrating: all the chatbot did was ask us questions on how we approached studying and make run-of-the-mill suggestions like “Have you tried mnemonic devices?”

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We tried to gain access to AI features in a different way then. We opened a random textbook solution and scrolled down to the AI section. It offered us the opportunity to define a concept for ourselves or teach us something new. And, what do you know – these features are locked behind a paywall!

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We returned to Q-Bot with an idea. At the beginning, it asks you to select a study set (we skipped this step the first time). We went with Writing Workshop: An Argumentative Essay about Economic Systems. This time, the chatbot offered to teach us and apply our knowledge. Selecting Teach Me actually produced some information out of the chatbot:

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Quizlet’s Customer Support

Quizlet’s customer support is often the source of ire among reviewers. Some say they never heard back from customer support after getting charged for the free trial. Others say customer support takes too long to respond and doesn’t help them resolve their issues.

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So, if you have to reach out to customer support, it seems that you can give up right away. On top of the customer support being reportedly useless, contacting it is an ordeal in and of itself. We looked around our account and couldn’t find a single link or mention of how to contact support.

At least, if you have questions on how to use Quizlet, you can head to its help center. The how-to guides are quite helpful, more so than the chatbot that pops up on that page. We tried asking it what features were available to paid users only, but the answer we got wasn’t quite related to our question.

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We decided to look for a way to contact support in the help center. We had to repeat the question “How do I contact customer support?” three times in the chatbot for it to spew out a contact form.

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Q-Bot: A Good Quiz Buddy?

As a tutor, the Q-Bot was, in our opinion, almost useless. But what about the quiz mode? We decided to try it. The chatbot offered a limited selection of subjects it could quiz us on. (The prompt field is disabled at this stage, so you can select only the predefined options.)

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We selected French. The experience made us… laugh, frankly, since the chatbot didn’t even bother to ask us about our current level in the language. It simply proceeded with asking us for French words for hello and thank you, which would be a waste of time for anyone above A1.

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We went on answering questions just to see if the chatbot would adapt the difficulty level. It didn’t. It ran out of basic questions and started repeating them after less than 5 minutes. What’s more, it produced this baffling response:

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Is Quizlet Expensive? Pricing Overview

Let’s start with a common question: Is Quizlet free now? The answer is, sort of. You can access Quizlet for free. Just click Continue to free Quizlet under the pricing plans you’re presented with after the signup.

Of course, you’ll be limited in features on the free plan. You can access solutions to textbook problems, but you can’t view expert Q&As. The same goes for receiving AI explanations, using diagrams and custom images/audio, and following personalized goal-based study paths. What’s more, free users should expect to get interrupted by ads every couple of minutes.

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So, to enjoy all the features, you’ll need a QuizletPlus subscription. It costs $35.99/year (equivalent to $2.99/month) or $7.99/month:

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Why does Quizlet cost money now? Well, Quizlet is a for-profit organization, unlike Khan Academy, which is a non-profit. So, while the company has provided only non-answers to this question, the most likely reason behind launching the paid plan is their pursuit of revenue growth.

While the annual plan is eligible for a free 7-day trial, be careful with it. Multiple reviews we’ve come across criticize Quizlet for charging them the full amount before the trial period is over:

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Quizlet’s User Experience: In a Word, Frustrating

Quizlet was one of the least straightforward tools we’ve ever gotten our hands on – and that’s saying something. As we were initially unfamiliar with the tool (we only knew that it used to be a flashcard app), figuring out how it works and what we can do with it was a frustrating process.

It took us a couple of hours of tinkering around with the tool to realize that creating a study set would actually allow us to tailor our Q-Bot experience to our needs. Once we uploaded a sample PDF, we were able to use the Q-Bot to teach us the content, quiz us, or ask questions.

We think that Quizlet is in dire need of proper onboarding for new users. Otherwise, they – like us – may fail to see the appeal of the tool right away and end up quitting it too soon. We wouldn’t have stuck around tinkering with Quizlet if it weren’t for writing this review.

This lack of thought is everywhere in your user journey as a Quizlet user, from contacting support to free trial conditions. We are left to wonder if it’s made convoluted on purpose or not.

Quizlet’s Extra Features

The newly added AI features were the main reason we decided to test Quizlet, thinking it became a full-fledged AI writing tool. But since we were proven wrong, we decided to look into its other capabilities.

Its Learn, Test, and Match modes were all quite fun, albeit somewhat limited. We could see the study potential in all of them. As for textbook solutions, they can come in quite handy – but only if you’re using one of the English-language textbooks present on Quizlet.

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So, is Quizlet safe to rely on if you’re running out of time to finish an assignment? Only if the assignment in question involves problem-solving – and even then it’s not a given. Expert solutions are paid-only, so you have access only to answers for U.S. textbooks if you’re unwilling to pay.

Custom Study Sets

It took us an embarrassing amount of time to figure out that we could use Q-Bot for a custom study set. To create one, we uploaded an Adobe report on digital skills, and Quizlet transformed 40 pages into a bullet-point-list-heavy summary almost instantly, which we appreciated.

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As for the Q-Bot’s help, its Teach Me mode was a rather bizarre experience. We could practically feel where the message’s template was filled with relevant terms.

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Its Ask a Question mode fared better, however. You can use it to quickly find answers to the questions in your assignment, for example. But steer away from reusing them verbatim – they get easily flagged as AI content by checkers like Copyleaks.

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So, is Quizlet good for studying using your own materials? We’d say it fares okay. Its summarization feature and Q-Bot’s Ask a Question mode are pretty handy. However, the Q-Bot falls short of being a reliable tutoring buddy or coach.

In Conclusion: Pros and Cons of Quizlet

Quizlet wants to corner the market with its AI tutor, but we remain unconvinced that AI tutors are here to replace human experts. Apart from the complete lack of AI writing tools for students, Quizlet isn’t even poised to be a reliable study tool – it seriously lacks intuitiveness to be one, for starters.

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Pros:

✅ You can use the Q-Bot to ask questions about your study materials ✅ Solutions to textbook exercises are available for free ✅ Pricing is affordable

Cons:

❌ A lot of features are locked behind a paywall ❌ AI tutoring is hardly a replacement for a human expert ❌ There are no AI tools for academic writing ❌ Customer support takes too long to respond and is often unhelpful ❌ User experience is confusing and lacks clear onboarding