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 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?