> My experience is that "being smart" is an advantage for the first years - say up to bachelor - at which point there is no magic: if you don't work, you won't

> My experience is that "being smart" is an advantage for the first years - say up to bachelor - at which point there is no magic: if you don't work, you won't get your exams. Yes, if you don't put in the effort, you won't achieve very much, but this doesn't mean that being smart is not an advantage. It is, both early and late. It is clearly advantageous to both be smart and put in the effort over just putting in the effort. In fact, if you read my comment carefully, you'll observe that I explictly pointed that out, here: > and you observe other students putting similar amounts of effort Next, > I am a firm believer that exams test skill sets that are only partially correlated to being actually good at job X - even if X is fundamental research. Again, if you read my comment carefully, you'll observe that I never mentioned exams. I discussed > obtaining much better results, understanding things more quickly and getting better ideas, which is what you do in actual research, not just exam studying. I would really appreciate it if you read what I say more carefully, and respond to what I'm actually claiming, instead of what you incorrectly believe I am.