It’s currently university exam season in my country. My roommate has quite literally not come to university at all the entire semester except for mandatory stuff; hasn’t studied at all, doesn’t even have the coursework, 0 notebooks or folders, etc. We’re more than half done with the exam session and he got 10/10 (max grade) at each exam. He just read through my coursework the day before the exam for a bit & that was it. When I ask him he says he uses intuition, logic and reading between the lines to understand the “patterns”. I just don’t understand how you can use “intuition” for microeconomics & math applied in economics for example. I know for a fact he doesn’t cheat cause in his mind cheating is too much effort.
Some people are academically gifted. Your flatmates experience was similar to mine, except as well as acing the exams, I failed the written piece assignments that I couldn’t just throw together the day before they were due.