[xanderlewis]

I’m sure it depends greatly on subject, but my experience has been quite the opposite. If you do even a modicum of learning ‘outside the classroom’ many exam questions suddenly become a routine triviality. If you learn only what the lecturer intends you directly to learn, you end up at a point where the exam is optimally difficult.

Looking at textbooks and other universities’ lecture notes on your own is so effective it almost feels like cheating!