A lot of grades, depending on the class, are more about dedication than intellect. Especially if you're just regurgitating information not really doing critical thinking.
It's dependent on a person's career and goals. If you are someone whose ultimate goal is going into, say here, med school, you will never need to know the fundamentals or theory behind whatever you learn in Physics 3C ever again.
And that is exactly the point.
The purpose of taking the class at that point is learning how to learn and perform well when given a challenging set of information in a limited amount of time. Because that skill is what you need to succeed in the later levels. The skill of critical thinking in this case comes after you are able to show that you have the ability to master facts in a limited time.
But if you were, say,
passionate about Physics, then that's a different story. Those people would learn the course because they enjoy it and devote their time into critically thinking and reveling in the fundamentals and continue on to higher classes and eventually get some Masters or Ph.D in quantum physics or something. Because it's something they love.
I hope that last sentence wasn't directed at me though, I know smart people in all kinds of shit really. Career choice is whatever. And some of my friends are great at picking subjects up but really lack situational awareness and common sense.
Book smarts and street smarts will always two different things. Having one will never mean you have capacity for the other.
