Just for the record, I felt like I effortlessly did very well on most of my tests in high school. All I did was go to class, stay awake as much as possible, and

Just for the record, I felt like I effortlessly did very well on most of my tests in high school. All I did was go to class, stay awake as much as possible, and do my homework. I never had to study in high school, where I was valedictorian, and I actually feel like my high school was pretty good. I did well on standardized tests (35 ACT, 1500 SAT), and felt at least as prepared as other freshman honors students at the Ohio State University. Honestly, I'm not trying to brag here, but I do want to provide a counterpoint to your "consensus". I agree that many talents (musical, visual art, sports, etc.) require a lot of effort. Perhaps in the sense of general mental exercise, there is effort involved in being intelligent: I read a lot in high school, and I always find myself playing weird numbers games in my head (like adding up the digits of long numbers to see if it's divisible by 3 or 9). But as far as putting in a lot of effort to "ace all exams", I never really felt like I had to do that, and I highly doubt that I'm the only person like this.