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About this tool
Builds a mock-viva prompt from your abstract and methods, distributing likely examiner questions across the standard defence areas.
The Viva Question Prompt Builder turns your thesis abstract and methods summary into a mock-examiner prompt that generates the questions a viva panel is actually likely to ask. It distributes 4 to 40 questions across the seven areas oral examinations predictably cover — opening summary, originality, literature, methodology, findings, limitations and implications — the recurring clusters identified in doctoral-viva research by Trafford and Leshem. It is built for PhD, MPhil, master's and final-year students preparing for a thesis defence.
Open Viva Question Prompt Builder on AltFTool — it loads instantly in your browser.
Add your input to the workspace.
Adjust the options until the result looks right.
Copy or download the output and put it to work.
The prompt forces the model to quote the specific phrase of your abstract each question probes, so nothing generic slips in.
Where the abstract is silent on something examiners expect — sample size, rival explanations, ethics — the prompt instructs the model to ask about the gap and label it as one.
The question count is split across your selected defence areas so limitations and future work get probed, not just the findings you rehearsed.
Viva questions are largely predictable and cluster into recurring areas: summarising the thesis, originality and contribution, positioning in the literature, methodology choices, how findings follow from data, limitations, and implications for future work. Research on doctoral examinations by Trafford and Leshem found examiners return to these same clusters across disciplines, which is why this tool distributes questions across exactly those areas.
A typical doctoral viva lasts one to three hours and covers roughly 10 to 40 substantive questions with follow-ups. This tool caps the mock set at 40 and requires at least 4 so every selected area gets at least one question.
It can generate realistic questions in the areas examiners predictably probe, because those areas are well documented — but it cannot know your specific examiners or read your full thesis. Use the output for rehearsal alongside mock vivas with your supervisor, not as a forecast.
Because useful viva questions attack specific claims, numbers and design choices, and only your abstract contains them. The tool requires at least 100 characters of abstract and instructs the model to quote the phrase each question probes, so a topic name alone would only produce generic questions.