AI Tutor vs Physics & Maths Tutor (PMT): A Comparison

Physics & Maths Tutor (PMT) is one of the best free GCSE revision libraries available — strong on past papers and concise notes. An AI tutor is better when a student needs someone to respond to their reasoning, not just their finished answer. PMT provides the material; an AI tutor provides the understanding.

What is Physics and Maths Tutor?

Physics & Maths Tutor, known universally as PMT, is a free UK revision website with an extensive library of GCSE and A-level resources. It hosts topic notes, past papers, mark schemes, and topic-by-topic past-paper questions across physics, maths, chemistry, biology, and several other subjects. It is widely recommended by UK sixth-form and secondary teachers and is entirely free — no account, no subscription.

PMT's particular strength is its past-paper archive: it collates papers from AQA, Edexcel, OCR, and other exam boards, organised by year and topic. This makes it one of the most practical go-to resources for a student looking for specific exam-style practice.

What PMT does well:

Comprehensive free past-paper archive across all major exam boards

Concise, curriculum-aligned topic notes across sciences and maths

Topic-by-topic question banks let students target weak areas

Entirely free — no sign-up or payment required

Trusted and widely used by UK teachers and students

What PMT does not do:

Respond to a student's answer with any feedback

Identify why a student keeps making the same type of mistake

Adapt what it shows based on the student's understanding

Explain a concept interactively when a student is confused

What does an AI tutor offer instead?

PMT is a static resource: it provides material and, through mark schemes, a way to self-check. What it cannot do is engage. When a student completes a PMT question and compares their answer to the mark scheme, they see the expected answer — but if their reasoning was flawed in a way that happened to produce the right number, they will not know. And if their answer was wrong but their method was almost correct, the mark scheme shows the right answer without explaining which step diverged.

An AI tutor can do what the mark scheme cannot. By asking the student to walk through their working — "you got 2.4 m/s², which differs from the expected answer; can you talk me through each step?" — the AI can identify precisely where reasoning broke down and guide the student to the correction.

This is particularly important for KS3 maths and physics, where multi-step problems are common and the error is often not in the arithmetic but in the conceptual setup: wrong formula, wrong rearrangement, wrong unit conversion.

What an AI tutor adds over PMT:

Targeted, immediate feedback at the level of reasoning, not just the final answer

Socratic dialogue that addresses the specific misconception a student holds

Adaptive difficulty — the AI adjusts based on what the student demonstrates

Covers humanities and English as well as sciences and maths

Appropriate for KS3 students who find GCSE-level past papers intimidating

Where PMT is stronger:

PMT's past-paper archive is unmatched for depth and breadth — entirely free

PMT's topic-note library covers A-level content that AI tutors may not address

Static resources work offline; no internet required

PMT covers more exam boards more comprehensively than most AI tutors

Side-by-side comparison

Criterion | Physics & Maths Tutor | AI tutor (e.g. aitutors.me)
Cost | Free | £14/month
How it teaches | Notes, past papers, mark schemes | Socratic dialogue
Feedback on errors | Mark scheme comparison (no targeted feedback) | Dialogue to identify and fix the specific error
Adapts to the student | No | Yes — responds to individual answers
Subjects | Physics, maths, chemistry, biology + others | Full KS3 curriculum (all core subjects)
KS3-specific content | Limited — primarily GCSE and A-level | Yes
Best for | Finding past papers and topic notes | Understanding why an answer was wrong
Offline access | Yes | No — requires internet

The honest case for PMT

PMT is genuinely one of the best free revision resources available for UK GCSE and A-level students, and it would be dishonest not to say so clearly. The combination of topic notes and topic-by-topic past-paper questions — all free, all exam-board-specific — is more useful for many GCSE students than anything that costs money.

If your child is in Year 10 or 11 and needs past-paper practice materials, PMT should be the first place they look. The sheer volume of available material, particularly for sciences and maths, means a dedicated student can find everything they need at no cost.

Where an AI tutor adds value that PMT cannot

The gap PMT leaves is the feedback loop. A student can download dozens of past papers from PMT, attempt them, and check them against mark schemes — but if they are making the same conceptual error repeatedly, mark-scheme comparison alone will not reveal it. The student sees that their answer is wrong; they do not see why their way of thinking about the problem is wrong.

For KS3 students, this gap is particularly significant. Many Year 7–9 students are building their understanding of scientific and mathematical reasoning for the first time. Passive resources — notes, mark schemes, model answers — are valuable, but without the kind of responsive dialogue that builds understanding, students may learn to mimic the pattern of a worked solution without genuinely grasping the underlying concept.

Frequently asked questions

Is Physics and Maths Tutor good for Year 9 students?

Yes, particularly for students who are beginning to look ahead to GCSE. Year 9 students will find PMT's foundation-tier GCSE content relevant and the topic notes accessible. However, the past papers are aimed at GCSE students in Years 10 and 11, so some content may be premature. PMT works best as a Year 9 student's preview of GCSE, used alongside more curriculum-aligned KS3 support.

Does PMT help with GCSE English or humanities?

PMT's strength is sciences and maths. Its coverage of English and humanities is limited — it does not have the same depth of past papers or topic notes in those subjects. Students revising GCSE English, history, or geography need additional resources for those subjects.

Can an AI tutor and PMT be used together?

Yes, and this is an effective combination. Use PMT to find the right topic notes and practice questions; use an AI tutor to work through specific questions where you are stuck or making repeated errors. The two approaches complement each other — PMT provides the material, the AI tutor provides the understanding.

How does an AI tutor help with PMT past-paper questions specifically?

A student can bring a specific question — or their working on a question — to an AI tutor session and ask for help understanding it. A Socratic AI tutor will not simply give the answer; it will ask the student to explain what they tried, identify where the reasoning diverged, and guide them through the correct approach. This turns a PMT mark-scheme check into an active learning moment.

See how aitutors.me's Socratic tutors compare at aitutors.me.