> You had to because you were studying for a specific exam, which you would fail if you only understood the deeper concepts but not specifics of the questions o

> You had to because you were studying for a specific exam, which you would fail if you only understood the deeper concepts but not specifics of the questions on that exam. I mostly operated that way on a class-by-class basis in grad school, but at some point it became a conceptual understanding. The "aha" moment came in grad school when I was a TA for a class I didn't do particularly well in as an undergrad. During a help session, I couldn't recall a couple specific formulae, but I was able to infer and derive them based on my conceptual understanding of the topic. I think the real difference was that I was now teaching the material, and in doing so, had to approach things from a totally different angle than studying for the test.