[flashgordon]

Just as a counter example. I have 2 "advanced" degrees - in engineering and in management (btw I did NOT do them because I was smart - but rather because I was curious and had a lot of time on my hand. I definitely struggled in both of them - though really really enjoyed them both). I am not what you call a model test-taker. I got barely passing marks in all my exams and yet my "assignments" I was consistently a high scorer in (sadly assignments at the time only accounted for atmost 20% of your grade with 80% being what you can cram-and-dump in an exam).

I still cannot "remember" how to perform a discrete-wavelet-transform from memory (my honor's thesis) but i found myself digging into it a couple of months ago (just fiddling on pet projects). An hour on googling got me on the track. Point is there is so much even those with advanced degrees have to know and having to retain it all in memory all the time is both infeasible and wasteful. Yet expecting kids/young adults to do this is truly hypocritical and disingenuous.