What Is Root Tutor? The AI Tutor for IB (and GCSE, A Level)

Quick answer

• Root Tutor is an AI tutor and study system for students aged 13+, built by an IB student for the IB, and it also supports GCSE, IGCSE and A Level.
• Tutor teaches step by step, remembers your past sessions, double-checks its maths and draws diagrams when a picture helps.
• Revision mode (rebuilt in October 2026) keeps every unit you've studied by class and month, runs a check-up, and sorts topics into remembered, shaky and learn next.
• Spaced review is opt-in: switch it on for a unit and each topic comes back on set days, with Light, Normal or Thorough timing.
• The Planner plans your study sessions around your real week and the run-up to every test.
• Free to use: no card needed, and new accounts get a 7-day free trial of everything.

It's 11pm, there's a mock on Thursday, and you can't remember what you covered in October, let alone which of it you've forgotten.

Root Tutor is the all-in-one AI tutor for IB, GCSE & A-Level. It plans your study sessions, teaches the way you think, and gets you ready for every test. It keeps every class, topic, note and file in one place, checks what you still remember, and runs exam-style practice papers. It was built by an IB student for the IB, and it supports GCSE, IGCSE and A Level too.

The idea behind it is simple: most students are not bad at studying, they are bad at organising it, and organising four to ten subjects is a job nobody teaches. Root takes that job. If you'd rather try it than read about it, start here; if you'd rather watch it teach first, see a real session.

Root at a glance

Everything lives in units

A unit is one block of a class, like "Quadratics" or "Cell biology". Each unit keeps its tutor chats, topics, files, notes and flashcards together. Drop in a syllabus, a study sheet or a photo of your notes and Root reads it and pulls out the topics.

That sounds like admin, and it is, which is exactly why Root does it. When exams come round, the topics you studied with Root are already there. Nobody has to scroll back through months of notes. Everything else on this page works from these units.

Revision mode: your whole year, already organised

Revision mode was rebuilt and relaunched in October 2026. It is the clearest example of what Root is for.

Every unit you've studied is there, by class. You can search it and filter by month ("Made in Oct"), so finding what you did in the autumn takes seconds.

Pick how to revise, four ways:

Then a check-up, not a lecture. Root asks one question at a time and marks each answer as got it, partly or not yet. In Weak spots, Full review and Your topics it checks each topic twice: first you explain it, then you use it. A check-up covers up to 8 topics when each is checked twice, or up to 12 when each is checked once.

A few things keep it fair:

• One hint per question. Asking for it gives you half credit, not zero.
• You stay in charge. Tell Root "I know this" to skip a topic, or type "No, I was right" to overrule a mark, and Root accepts it and moves on.
• Stop any time. Results save as you go, and "Unfinished revisions" lets you continue later on any device.

You get a clear report: Remembered, Shaky (nearly there) and Not yet (learn these next). If something is shaky, one tap ("Learn these in Tutor") sends the gaps to the tutor, which builds a study plan that starts with them. The results also go into the unit's topic list and into what Tutor knows about you.

You can also revise something new: drop in a PDF or a photo of your notes and Root makes a revision unit from it. Flashcards come from a session when you tap the button; they are never made without you asking.

Revision mode checks what you remember and finds the gaps. For exam-style papers, use Test prep (below).

Spaced review: Root tells you when to recap (if you want it to)

Spacing your reviews out over days and weeks beats cramming them together. That is one of the best-supported findings in learning research: Cepeda and colleagues' 2006 review pooled hundreds of experiments on it. The hard part is the scheduling, which is why most students never do it. Our spaced repetition guide explains how to run it by hand.

In Root, spaced review is off until you switch it on, unit by unit, for the units that matter. Once it is on, each topic comes back on set days after you learn it. There is one setting, "How often":

When a review is due you get one email for it, only for units you've switched on. Never daily spam. Get a topic right and it moves on to the next review day; miss it and it comes back sooner. Each unit shows its plan of review days, a "Your memory now" bar for each topic, and a timeline. "Review now" works early too, and "+ Add a topic you've learned" puts something from class into the plan.

Tutor: how it teaches now

Each unit has its own tutor that knows you: your past sessions, your weak spots and your files. Ask about a topic and it won't dump an essay on you. It works the way a good private tutor works:

You: I don't get how to solve x² + 5x + 6 = 0

Root: We'll get there, and you'll do most of it. Quick check first: if two things multiply together to make zero, what do you know about at least one of them?

You: it has to be zero?

Root: Exactly, that's the entire trick. So if we could rewrite x² + 5x + 6 as two brackets multiplied together, what would we know about each bracket?

• Step by step. Root asks you to try, watches where your reasoning goes, and guides you rather than handing over the answer. Retrieval is what builds memory: in Roediger and Karpicke's 2006 study, students who tested themselves remembered more a week later than students who re-read.
• It remembers you. It knows what you struggled with last time and what you've already mastered, so the next session starts from there. If you've decided you're just bad at a subject, that is usually not the real problem.
• Maths you can trust. Root double-checks its own answers, and a wrong sum is re-done before you see it.
• It draws. When a picture helps, Root draws the diagram or graph inside the lesson.
• Photo homework. Snap it and Root works through it with you.
• Listen. Root can read answers aloud.

It will not write your homework for you. It makes you do the reasoning, because you'll be alone with the paper on exam day.

Test prep: exam-style papers, then a plan for the misses

Test prep builds a practice paper in your exam's style from your topics, your teacher's material and your exam board, and the questions get harder as you go. Every answer is checked by a second solve before you see the paper.

It feels like the real thing: a timer, a calculator, hints (with a warning that you won't get them in the exam) and photos of your working. Your paper is marked like an examiner would mark it, against a mark scheme, including the photos of your working, so you see where marks were won and lost. Then Root acts on the misses: it shows your strengths, what needs work and what to study next, sends that to the tutor and into your plan, and offers a button to turn the misses into flashcards. For how to get the most from any practice paper, see how to use past papers, and if the exam itself is what worries you, our exam stress guide.

The Planner: the part that runs your week

Every revision method works on paper. The reason students drop them is that each one hands you a second job: deciding what to study, every day, across every subject. Vague plans are also what feed procrastination. The Planner does that job.

• It plans every study session around your classes, your free time and your busy nights ("Night off").
• It keeps every subject going with keep-up sessions for each class every week, so the quiet subject can't disappear for a month.
• It plans the run-up to every test. Add a test and what's on it, and Root plans the sessions before it, for example: find your weak spots, fix them, sit a practice paper, fix its mistakes. There are 3 ways to prep.
• It learns your pace and how many sessions each class really needs.
• It reminds you, with an email on the days your plan has a session.
• Change it in one message. Tell it "busy Thursday" and it moves things around your real week. You confirm before anything changes.
• Weekly check-ins, plus homework, projects and assignments on the same board.

New accounts get a 7-day free trial of everything, with no card, which is long enough to hand the Planner a real week. If you'd rather plan by hand, our revision timetable guide shows how.

How the modes feed each other

The modes are not separate apps. A tutor lesson becomes a unit. Revision mode checks what you still remember from your units and sends the gaps back to the tutor. Test prep finds what costs you marks and sends that to the tutor and into your plan. Spaced review, if you switch it on, brings each topic back on its days. The Planner puts all of it into your week.

Getting started

Root is free to use, with no card needed, and new accounts get a 7-day free trial of everything. Every plan runs the same AI on the same settings, so you never get a weaker Root.

Who Root is for: IB first, GCSE and A Level supported

Root was built by an IB student, around the IB Diploma's real problems: six subjects, three at Higher Level, plus the Extended Essay, TOK and CAS, over two years in which Year 1 content quietly fades. If that is you, start with how to study for the IB.

Root also supports GCSE, IGCSE and A Level students, and you can tell it your exam board (AQA, Edexcel, OCR, Cambridge, WJEC or your IB programme). Root's design comes from first-hand experience of the IB, and for GCSE and A Level it follows your course, syllabus and exam board.

Root vs ChatGPT

The difference is what happens around the conversation. Root keeps your units, remembers your sessions, checks what you've forgotten, runs exam-style papers and plans your week. ChatGPT is a general assistant, so it leaves all of that to you. We wrote a full ChatGPT vs Root comparison if that's your question. For how Root compares with other tools, see our rundowns of AI tutors for GCSE, study apps for A Level and the best IB study resources.

Is Root safe? A word for parents

The comparison you're probably making is with a human tutor. Root does the same job a good tutor does, teaching with questions and checking real understanding, on every evening of the week, and it is free to use.

The three questions parents actually ask. First, Root will not do your child's homework for them: it teaches with questions and makes them do the reasoning. Second, data: conversations are processed by Root's AI provider, OpenAI, to generate replies, and are not used to train AI models, by Root or by OpenAI. Root never sells data and shows no ads. The detail is in the privacy policy, and Root is for ages 13 and up. Third, screen time: the weekly streak asks for 45 focused minutes across a week, not hours of scrolling. Our comparison of AI and human tutoring is written to be straight with you about both.

Start with Root

Everything on this blog still works by hand: active recall, spacing, interleaving, past papers, a timetable. How to revise and the study techniques that actually work put it all together. Root takes away the organising, so the studying is all that's left. Use it free, no card needed, or watch a real session first.