> I know people from college that worked a lot harder than me and spent a lot more time studying than me, and they got worse grades. I never "practiced" and ace

> I know people from college that worked a lot harder than me and spent a lot more time studying than me, and they got worse grades. I never "practiced" and aced all my exams. I've got similar anecdotes. In high school, the way I studied for history exams was to come in to class early and listen to two of my classmates quiz each other with flashcards. In my head: "Yup, knew that one. Yup, knew that one. Oh, didn't remember that one. Hmm, didn't know that one either." My classmates got 100% on the flashcards, then got C's on the exam; I got an A. My sophomore year of university, at the beginning of the year, there were three of us -- myself, K, and C, who got along well and sat together in lectures. C eventually got bored and stopped coming to class. The morning of the final exam, K was basically giving C a crash-course for the entire semester -- patiently explaining all the concepts and techniques that C had completely missed by not coming to class. Then they took the exam, and K got a 'C', and C got an 'A'. (So did I.) The thing about both of these anecdotes is that in both cases, as far as I can tell, the people who got C's actually knew the material. I didn't grade any of their exams, so I don't know exactly what went wrong; but whatever's happening is more complicated than simply, "They weren't smart enough to master the material."