Multiple-choice questions look easy until you are reviewing a dense unit and all four options feel equally right. Then you cannot tell whether you actually understand the material or are just pattern-matching. A good AI for multiple-choice practice should read the whole question, tell you which option holds up, and explain why the other three are traps. Lensia does that, and the way you will use it most is the sidebar chat: a panel that opens next to your practice page and stays there while you work through a set. You paste a question, read why the answer is what it is, then ask "make me three more like this" and keep going. When something on the page stops you and you just want a fast read, a floating panel grabs it in a couple of seconds. Install Lensia free.
A note on academic integrity: Lensia is a study aid. Use it to learn the material, work practice sets, and check your own answers after you attempt them. Using it during a graded assessment where AI is restricted is academic dishonesty. This guide is about reviewing and practicing, not live graded work.
Why multiple choice is hard to study from
A short-answer question lets you look up a phrase. Multiple choice is different: the whole point is that the wrong options are written to look right. A bare answer key tells you the letter and nothing else, so you memorize the answer to that one question and learn nothing you can carry to the next one. What actually helps is seeing the rule behind the correct choice and the specific trap in each distractor. Do that a few times and you start spotting the pattern cold.
That is the kind of back-and-forth the sidebar is built for, which is why it is the main way to practice with Lensia.
The sidebar chat: your practice partner
Open the sidebar from your Chrome toolbar. A chat docks in Chrome's side panel next to your practice set, and it is on every plan. Because it keeps the whole conversation, you can run a real practice loop:
- Paste a question with all its options and ask why the right one is right and each wrong one is wrong.
- Type "generate five more like this" and drill the pattern instead of the single item.
- Attempt those cold, paste your answers back, and ask where your reasoning slipped.
Two things make the loop stronger over a long session. Conversation history keeps every explanation around, so the night before the test you can scroll back through a whole unit. Bookmarks save the ones you keep missing. A model picker at the top lets you start on a fast model and switch to a stronger one mid-thread when a question hinges on a subtle rule. For the study habits that make this pay off, read the study smarter guide and the AI study helper guide for students.
What paid tiers add
The sidebar is free. On Basic and up, the AI can run a web search or fetch a URL to pull a definition or fact into the chat while it explains, and the reasoning toggle (a single on/off switch) tells it to slow down and check its work on questions with tricky logic. Pro adds agent mode, which can read your open tab and chain a few steps before answering.
The floating panel: grab a question off the page
Not every question needs a conversation. Sometimes you are stepping through a practice set and want a fast read without leaving the page. Press Ctrl+Shift+X, drag a box around the question and all its choices, and a worked explanation floats up on top of the page in a few seconds. Include every option in the box; that is what lets the AI rank them instead of guessing.
The panel is more than a one-shot tool:
- Quick Capture (
Ctrl+Shift+F) repeats your last capture area without redrawing the box. On a page of similarly laid-out questions, that is one keypress each. - Ask Mode is a switch on the panel that turns it into a typing box: write your own question and attach up to three images, handy for comparing two questions or asking something a single screenshot cannot hold.
- Ctrl+Shift+E hides the panel and brings it back.
For a full walkthrough of both surfaces, read how Lensia works.
A practice routine that actually sticks
- Attempt the question yourself first, and commit to an answer before you check.
- Ask the sidebar (or capture the question) to explain why each option is right or wrong.
- Ask it to generate a few fresh questions on the same idea.
- Redo them later without help. If you can explain your choice out loud, you have learned the pattern, not the answer.
This works on the practice content you already use: quiz-game-style review sets, publisher question banks, flashcard sites, lecture-slide checks, and PDF study guides open in the browser. If you can see the question, Lensia can break it down. For the wider workflow across subjects, see the AI homework helper complete guide.
Which plan fits
Every tier signs in with Google. Sign in once to activate.
- Free covers the sidebar chat with history and bookmarks, the floating panel with Ask Mode, Quick and Standard models, and the Lensia Max router, which picks a fitting model per question and takes 15 percent off the cost.
- Basic adds about ten times the usage, the reasoning toggle, custom instructions, web search and fetch URL, and Advanced models for the questions where the reasoning has to be airtight.
- Pro has the highest usage, adds agent mode in the sidebar, and includes Auto-Solve Mode, which works on Vocabulary.com only. Every other practice site uses the manual capture flow and the sidebar.
Start practicing today
Setup takes under two minutes. Install Lensia from the Chrome Web Store, sign in with Google, and open the sidebar on your next practice set. Break down the questions you miss, drill the pattern with fresh ones, and walk into the test recognizing the traps instead of guessing at them.