It’s currently university exam season in my country. My roommate has quite literally not come to university at all the entire semester except for mandatory stuff; hasn’t studied at all, doesn’t even have the coursework, 0 notebooks or folders, etc. We’re more than half done with the exam session and he got 10/10 (max grade) at each exam. He just read through my coursework the day before the exam for a bit & that was it. When I ask him he says he uses intuition, logic and reading between the lines to understand the “patterns”. I just don’t understand how you can use “intuition” for microeconomics & math applied in economics for example. I know for a fact he doesn’t cheat cause in his mind cheating is too much effort.
I did this through high school by listening in class, the teachers explained the material then assigned homework, which I did not do, then tests, which I crushed with near 100% accuracy, then got a C grade in most classes because I don’t do the work, only the tests. Also tested out of the first year of college. Was just good at taking tests I guess.
In university though - I did have to study and do the homework to ace the exams. That was more specialized (accounting).
ETA: your friend sounds like an absolute testing savant. I don’t know how that will translate to a job though.
I… kinda fit the bill. Most proud moment was getting the highest grade in my class for Organic Chemistry (believe it was 107/100 or something… we had extra credits since the course was too damn hard) while barely studying, because the chemical structures/concepts made natural sense to me and I kinda liked the class
Used to think I’m really smart. Later on I realize I probably have hyperlexia from my ASD diagnosis so… I still studied, just that it seemed to have taken much less time for me than most others
Similar for me but with ADHD. I never studied, could barely pay attention in class unless I was reading comics or something, and consistently got high grades. In one of the physics classes I got a 99 on the midterm and 100 on the final.
10 years later, I struggle to read through a design doc. Academia and real world are very different.
I was like this in programming classes. I would read one time and immediately understand and go and get 10 at the exam. Even new languages or concepts, I would read it once and thats it. It was like a fun game for me. Anything else at school? Abysmal scores, including Math! (I hate when people equate programming and math as if its the same skill - its fucking not!) I would struggle with everything unrelated to computers.
People require different amounts of repetition to remember something in long term memory. The average is 8-10 repetitions if I recall correctly. What we define as gifted is really a lower required number of repetitions. Photographic memory is very rare but it only requires 1 repetition. Most “gifted students” require 2-4 repetitions to recall it. Students that struggle can require 30+ repetitions to recall the information. Some of the learning impaired can have 1000+ repetitions and never learn it.
What’s fascinating to me is that somebody can be a low repetition in some areas but high repetition in others. For example, a person can have a high ability to remember imagery but struggle with names and language.
To add in more complexity, short term memory varies as well. Some people have an exceptionally strong short term memory. These people excel at the study and forget it method. Give them a long sequence to remember for a short while like the old Simon game and they win everytime. Other people struggle to recall a sequence longer than 3 or 4.
Now what your friend is describing is the ability to process information. This is referred to sometimes as critical thinking. Just like memory this varies greatly by individual it also varies by age. Most people don’t start to develop the skill until their mid-20’s if they ever do. A large percentage of the population never develops this ability. Unfortunately this skill also commonly degrades as you get older.
FYI microeconomics is basically a little bit of vocabulary and critical thinking. Most of the text books could really be a pamphlet if they got rid of all the fluff.
I just don’t understand how you can use “intuition” for microeconomics & math applied in economics for example.
If you have an intuition for math, dealing in topics with a math component becomes a lot easier to understand.
I recently took a test and passed it without studying.
This was a Microsoft exam for getting a certification relating to my job.
It’s really because I work in this daily and I know the program in and out enough that I am the one who teaches my colleagues how to use it at work. I was given some instruction by some colleagues and built on that and also watched videos and learned things as I worked in it.
It’s probably a similar thing for people like this in school too. Some people learned this stuff in earlier years. I remember being in college and some of the stuff being taught was stuff I had already learned before, even as early as 3rd grade in one of my English classes. Then there are also people who have a passion for some subjects and have gone above and beyond in learning the subject outside of school that they’ve already learned what’s being taught in the class. Likely been invested in YouTube videos and making them, themselves, reading various books on the subject, may even have a parent who wrote those books or been heavily involved in the subject, etc.
I am one of those people who don’t study and I have a 3.9 GPA in college rn. It’s because the way schools test is extremely conducive to people with good memory. I can hold on to all the necessary information until the test date and then I forget it afterwards. The only notes I take are writing down formulas for math classes, although I wish I kept more notes because I find myself needing math for personal projects, but after the class is finished, I don’t really remember how to do the stuff I was taught and then I have to go relearn it on my own…
I can attest and as you put its particularly for people who can memorize short term. Im sorta the opposite and you would think that would have let go the higher up you go but it kinda gets the opposite were so many people have dropped out that now you have a curve with pretty solid people in the major and your score in relation to the crowd can be just a few questions. The immunology professor also had a reputation for hard tests and almost had a small mutiny on his hands and alls he really did was change the values year to year so you could just straight out memorize previous years tests. I imagine this is not as much the case in math too unless the professors are really lazy but up to the math I had I did not see any advantage for people with good short term memory. This also is experiences from the early nineties in college. So its been a thing for awhile.
It’s mostly how I made it through school/university. I just don’t remember things for very long and found it’s just easier to study 1-2 hours before a test so it’s still fresh in your mind.
For bigger tests, maybe create a summary of things that may be asked and go over that just before the test.
I almost never did homework.
My grades were never great but enough to pass.
I was like this up to Master’s degree (in CS, in the 90s, it was easier, there was less languages or concepts etc), I only went to courses where I knew about nothing, like Prolog/Caml which is wtf language, and the “compiler” course where you learn about LL(1) grammar, lex/yacc, I knew nothing about this and had to go to the courses. Everything else like Pascal/C/Assembly/etc I did not go. Standard cum laude.
Of course it’s because of computers/languages where we learnt a lot ourselves at home, hacking. If it was economics or else, I would not be able to.
Some people just have the knack, interest and understanding for certain subjects. Math, being mostly deterministic, can be really difficult for many, while some just happen to understand what’s going on.
Now, I wasn’t into financial math, but I did start learning the basics of geometry, trigonometry, and even the basic fundamentals of Calculus, all on my own, at the age of 10. I was also learning to respoke bicycle rims at home, so the subjects of circles and trigonometry were especially of interest to me at the time.
By the time the school bothered even starting to cover these subjects, I was already writing my own 3D graphics rendering engine at home. My Calculus 2 teacher told me that when I first came into his class, I already had a fair good understanding up through Calculus 4.
TL;DR - Some people struggle to simply memorize things, while others tend to just understand things.
I’m a good test taker. I would get zeroes for not doing my homework, but then get a high enough grade on the tests to balance it out.
I was never great at memorizing details, but if I understand something, I can usually “logic” my way to the right answer.
For example if you asked what year did the civil war start, I wouldn’t be able to tell you, but if you asked what war started in 1861, I’d know it was the civil war.
People in this thread are throwing around the term “smarter” a lot and I think we should avoid that. How quick you pick things up might be an indicator for being smart but it is only one aspect. The following are generalizations and there are always exceptions so keep that in mind.
What you will find in life is a lot of the people like you describe have generally shallow knowledge of a subject but are capable of ramping up quickly and filling out that deeper knowledge as needed. Meanwhile, the folks who tend to take longer and study more retain more of the knowledge and are more capable at using it without supplemental data or analysis.
It is the difference between knowing an answer and knowing enough to quickly find or intuit the answer.
I’m no genius, far from it to be honest. But I went through most parts of high school without studying because I somehow remembered stuff being talked about in class. I just recalled how the teacher said required thing and what they were connected with. It was enough to get average grades.
Uni was a bit different. I had huge problems with classes focused on just memorizing stuff. Lectures was not mandatory and most teachers were terrible at explaining stuff so I ended up missing most of those as it gave me zero benefit.
To pass the exams I had to really understand some basic procedures where applicable (math, economics, etc). And I mean really understand to what’s going on and why, not just memorizing equations. Once I grasped the basic concept it was often quite easy actually (I wasn’t aiming for As) because everything made sense out of sudden.
That’s why memorizing heavy classes were such a pain for me. There were usually no such “basics” where you can build upon. I had a classmate which was exact opposite of me. She could memorize a whole lecture book over night just by reading it once or twice. And I mean memorize like basically she could start to finish it word by word. Did she know what she was saying/writing? Often times not, but as long as the exam was written, she had straight As because she just wrote whatever the teacher wanted to be there. IDK if she had photographic memory or what, but it was completely mind boggling to me, exactly like your roommate is to you. Maybe they function the same?
You still study. It’s just what you do for fun/ in your free time. You need to find a subject you’re passionate about, regardless of income. If it’s more of a financial situation, you need to find a patron.
Some people are academically gifted. Your flatmates experience was similar to mine, except as well as acing the exams, I failed the written piece assignments that I couldn’t just throw together the day before they were due.
