Following your lead: Thinking is not "answering questions". In order to build a mental model of a problem, you need a rather good model of the environment in

Following your lead: Thinking is not "answering questions". In order to build a mental model of a problem, you need a rather good model of the environment in your mind, and this comes from memory and the habit of thinking (which is what drill exercises facilitate). Rote learning is an essential tool in being able to create adequate models of the environment. The problem is lots of people think it is useless because "I did not need to memorize", when the issue is that "they are sufficiently able to memorize that they do it unconsciously". But most people need to put the effort.