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.
Some people are smarter than others. Some people are so smart that they struggle to be interested in school unless it’s a challenge, and can simply skate by like your roommate.
I certainly can’t say I am anywhere near that level, but I was smart enough to coast through a lot of subjects I was interested in without studying.
I also learned from a young age that I could pass a multiple choice test on a subject I knew nothing about just by intuition, looking for context clues, and guessing. Ask me to write an essay on an unfamiliar subject, and I was screwed, though.
I feel that multiple choice test thing in a major way. I could probably get 75% or more right on any multiple choice test regardless of my actual knowledge on the topic. I always found those tests to be a terrible way to see if someone actually understood the subject matter.
I was smart enough to purposely average Cs in grade school and highschool and then drop out the second I turned 18 lol.
I’m pretty stupid, but I often find my self completely perplexed by the stupidity and lack of logical thinking from people who had 4.0+ GPAs and have doctorates. Like on paper these people are smarter than me in every conceivable way, but they were too stupid to know not to put engine coolant into their oil.
Something something fish climbing trees.
I wouldn’t necessarily equate having a good memory or good intuition to intellect / being smart.
For certain subjects, I opted not to study and did well like OP is asking about. Studying would have helped my grades further. I just simply couldn’t be bothered and I have no regrets with how I chose to spend my time.
In university, I had low emotional intelligence, so maybe that was a tradeoff?
You know what’s infuriating about multiple choice tests? When you know enough to notice a mistake. You can tell the teacher screwed up, and now you know none of the answers are correct or more than one is. Next, you’ll just have to telepathically figure out what the teacher was thinking of when designing the exam, and pick the answer that was originally supposed to be the right one.
If you’ve mastered the art of exam telepathy, you also unlock the ability to pass any multiple choice exam.
Yup, I was able to pass recertification as a pediatrician for the state of NJ in 1985 when I was in 5th grade because Im good at multiple choice exams. You wouldn’t want any version of me doing pediatrics as my major/minor in college were poli sci/International Relations.
Basically my son. He currently studies math and computer science, and for the first time in his life he does not feel bored to death.
I have always had a fairly easy time with multiple choice answer tests. Most of the time, they are poorly designed, such that often there are two obvious wrong answers and a 50/50 just assuming 4 options. If one then applies related knowledge or concepts, further narrowing the guess, likely to get at least a 75%. I too have been fascinated by this and looked into exploring why. Intuition seems as good of an explanation as I can think to call it too. I could have tought most of my undergrad program and didn’t apply myself for my MBA with a 3.95 GPA. I don’t think that it makes me or your friend necessarily smarter, just the way that each person processes and retrieves information. Also most of economics is made up, so that helps…just not for Modeling… lol
Microecon and math applied in math weren’t multiple choice. Micro had a theory portion (mini essay basically) + problems. Math was problems only. The other subjects (management, accounting, business law, etc.) had multiple choice but there could be 1,2,3,4 or all correct answers.
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 the answer.
I’ll give you my experience with this:
I don’t quite have a photographic memory but I’d say it’s reasonably close in terms of written text. If I pick up a textbook and read it, I can re-read the pages in my head at any point during that test to try to figure out the answer. For tests where all I have to do is recall and write down info, this works really well. For tests where the information needs to be applied to a problem, it helps but doesn’t always work perfectly, and here’s where I need to use my brain to try to “translate” the book knowledge to apply to the specific question.
I usually studied for 2-3 hours, did a handful of practice questions, then went and got 85%+ on all my Uni final exams. I did sit through lectures, because they were mandatory, but I rarely paid attention, and my verbal recall is terrible compared to what I see written down. I didn’t take a single note in university though, because usually between the textbook and the slides I had everything I needed.
Same deal here, but with a strange twist in my case. I have absolutely terrible short term memory, stuff barely commits to long term, but if it does I can remember it exactly as if I’d just seen it. Makes it very hard to explain why I know the exact position of a USB cable I put away 2 years ago but still can’t reliably find where I set my keys
There are people who learn so easily that they only need to listen what professor said and maybe write few notes and they already know at least basics for exam.
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.
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 almost never study for math tests. Its so easy. I just know numbers for some reason. Like I was born for it, my brain is wired for it.
Well except that one pre-calc class in high school. Teacher can’t fucking teach, everyone had C’s and D’s. Pretty sure if I had an actual useful teacher, I’d get at least a B with zero study.
Funny thing is: I picked Chinese for this “world language” requirement in high school (in USA btw). I was born in PRC and already went through the early years of elementry school in China. I fucking slayed Chinese class with zero studying, A’s for all 4 quarters (I mean, I didn’t expand any knowledge, because I already knew it, but I mean, I didn’t want more stress so… 🤷♂️ Free GPA increase I guess… 😅). Is picking a language class for a language you already know “cheating”? Idgaf, its a free grade.
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?
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.
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.
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.
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.
