A Hacker News user had long forgotten the title and author of a book they'd once read, and searching online got nowhere. Not expecting much, they gave ChatGPT a brief summary of the story and it correctly guessed the book.
I'm trying to remember a book I read around [YEAR OR AGE]. Here's what I remember: [PLOT, CHARACTERS, SETTING, COVER, ANYTHING ELSE]. Give me your five best guesses with the author and year, and for each one explain which details match and which don't. Ask me questions if that would help narrow it down.
Replace the [PLACEHOLDERS] with your own details before you send it.
How to try it
- Write down everything you remember, even small details like the cover colour or where you read it.
- Ask ChatGPT for several guesses and the reasons behind each.
- Check the likely matches on a library or bookshop site before you order, as guesses can be wrong.
More learning use cases
Make maths practice fun with personalised stories from Grok
A home-schooling parent whose son found reading and maths hard, but loved dragons and cats, asked Grok for adventure stories starring him that slipped in some maths. He kept asking for more, and afterwards they had Grok create a picture of each story's scenery.
Write a short adventure story for my [AGE]-year-old, [CHILD'S NAME], who loves [INTERESTS, E.G. DRAGONS AND CATS]. Weave in [NUMBER] maths questions about [TOPIC, E.G. ADDING UP TO 20] that the hero has to solve to carry on, plus a few real facts about [ANIMAL OR SUBJECT]. Keep the words easy enough for a [READING LEVEL] reader, and put the answers at the end for me.
Make example sentences for your language flashcards with ChatGPT
A long-time Anki user who builds vocabulary from example sentences tried ChatGPT when online context dictionaries kept returning overly technical examples. For tricky Japanese words it produced clearer sentences than the dictionary, though they worry AI sentences might sound odd to native speakers, so treat them with care.
I'm learning [LANGUAGE] at about [LEVEL] level. For each word below, write one short, natural, everyday sentence that a native speaker might actually say, then give the English meaning. Keep the grammar at my level and tell me if a word is formal, old-fashioned or rarely used. Words: [LIST OF WORDS].
Photograph a confusing page in a book and get it explained with ChatGPT
A Hacker News user who still reads lots of print books takes a photo of the page whenever they hit unfamiliar notation and asks ChatGPT what's going on in that paragraph. They also use it to summarise a topic, drill into specifics and quiz them, as a kind of 'poor man's Anki' alongside their real flashcards.
Here's a photo of a page from a book I'm reading about [SUBJECT]. In [PARAGRAPH OR LINE], I don't understand [THE NOTATION / TERM / IDEA]. Explain it in plain English with a simple example, assuming I know [WHAT YOU ALREADY KNOW]. Then ask me 3 quick questions, one at a time, to check I've got it.
Reference: Hacker News