How to share exam prep material with your students and study as a group
Preparing for a competitive exam — civil service, firefighters, police — means juggling dozens of PDFs, Word notes, practice tests, links to regulations, official announcements and videos. If you're the tutor, you spend the day re-sending the latest version; if you're a candidate, it's scattered across email, WhatsApp and Downloads. Here's how to keep it all in one place that fits in your pocket.
Scan it with your phone
The problem: the syllabus lives in ten places
- Each unit arrives as a different PDF and, when it's updated, old and new versions coexist.
- The official announcement, rules and reference laws are on government websites you have to find again.
- Practice tests and technique videos are sent on WhatsApp and get lost.
- Students who join mid-course don't have what came before.
What to include and how to organise it
One collection per exam, with categories that follow the syllabus:
- Syllabus: one PDF or Word file per unit, with a note saying when it was last revised.
- Tests and mocks: past papers, practice tests and their answers.
- Regulations: links to the laws and official texts in the syllabus.
- Announcement: the official portal, rules, dates and results lists.
- Physical tests: training plans as PDFs, technique videos and the test venue on Google Maps.
- Study plan: the weekly schedule, pinned to the top so it's the first thing people see.
Channel or Collaborative: which to use
Channel
one person publishes, the rest view
For the tutor or academy
- You publish the material and only you edit it: students can't delete or move anything.
- When you add a new unit or a corrected version, everyone's collection updates.
- Late joiners come in with the link and get everything that came before, in order.
- When someone leaves the academy, you remove them and they lose access.
Collaborative
everyone adds and edits
For a group of candidates
- Everyone adds: the test one person found, the video that explains unit 7 well, someone else's notes.
- Ideal for a study group or classmates from the same cohort.
- Everyone saves from their own phone with Share, without going through the chat.
How to set it up in five minutes
- Install Linkalia and create a collection named after the group.
- Create the categories. For example: Syllabus, Tests, Regulations, Announcement, Physical tests.
- Add material with Share from any app: PDFs, Word files, photos, YouTube videos, links or Google Maps locations.
- Tap the collection's name to open Collection info and, under Access, pick Channel or Collaborative.
- In the ⋮ menu, tap Share invite link: send it to the WhatsApp group or show the QR code.
Anyone without the app lands on the page to download it for free; no sign-up or email needed. As admin you see who's in the collection and can remove (and readmit) anyone.
See it in the app: Linkalia comes with the example collection “Firefighter Entrance Exams 2026”. Once installed it's in your library, so you can see how it looks before creating your own.
Frequently asked questions
Can students download the PDFs?
Yes. Documents in the Channel open on the phone and can be downloaded to study offline.
How do I stop outsiders from seeing the material?
Only people with the invite link or QR code can join. As admin you see the list of followers and can remove anyone who shouldn't be there.
Does it work for any exam?
Yes: firefighters, police, administrative posts, teaching, healthcare… The structure is the same: syllabus, tests, regulations and announcements.
All the material in one link, always up to date. Create your exam prep Channel for free with Linkalia.
Scan it with your phone