What to bring so a tutor can target your gaps

A tutor can only fix what they know is broken. Walking in empty-handed means spending your first session or two on guesswork—time you've paid for and won't get back. Before you even book, gather the evidence of where you're actually stuck.

Your university transcripts, past exam papers, and assignments matter far more than a polished description of "what you need help with." A tutor who sees your actual work—not just your worry—can spot patterns you've missed. They'll know whether you're weak on core concepts, struggling with application, losing marks to careless errors, or freezing under exam conditions. These are fundamentally different problems with different solutions.

What reveals your real learning gaps

Bring your most recent assignment feedback, especially marked rubrics or comments from your lecturer. If you've received test scripts or exam papers back with annotations, these are gold. They show exactly where you lost points and often hint at what the examiner expected. Don't cherry-pick your best work; bring a piece where you underperformed and honestly believed you'd done better.

If you're early in your studies and don't have much marked work yet, bring the assignment brief itself, your lecture notes on that topic, and any practice problems or tutorial sheets—even if you haven't attempted them. A tutor can use these to quickly diagnose whether you're confused about what's being asked, unable to break down the problem, or struggling to articulate your knowledge.

For technical or quantitative subjects, bring three things: a worked example from a lecture or textbook that makes sense to you, one that doesn't, and one problem you've attempted but aren't sure about. This shows the tutor your current ceiling and ceiling-to-floor gap in one conversation.

Preparing for a conversation that actually lands

Your tutor needs to understand your specific university context. Bring the course outline or learning outcomes for the module you're struggling with. Different lecturers weight different skills—one might prioritise critical analysis, another technical accuracy. Your course guide tells a tutor what the bar actually is.

Also bring your own honest assessment: what have you already tried? Have you attended lectures, tutorials, consulted your lecturer during office hours, or used your university's free support? A tutor isn't a substitute for your own effort, but they are a magnifier of it. They need to know what's already happened so they don't retread ground.

If you're anxious about a particular assessment—an upcoming exam, a thesis chapter, a presentation—bring the instructions, marking rubric, or past examples if they exist. This means your tutor can show you exactly how to meet the standard rather than giving you generic study tips.

When you contact a potential tutor on Strove, include a brief note about what you're bringing and why. A tutor who asks "what materials should I look at before we meet?" is worth booking; one who skips this step might not use your time efficiently. A good match will use your first session primarily to understand your thinking process, not to figure out what you actually need.

The practical upside: your tutor starts solving your problem on day one instead of day three. You're not paying for exploratory conversations; you're paying for targeted help shaped by evidence of where you're stuck. Bring the receipts of your learning, and you'll walk out of that first session knowing exactly what's next.