I'm going to chime in on something here. "The person who studies and understood might get high marks but if everyone else does based on some hidden criteria they wonder why they bother to study." - That's a personal problem. Some people don't need to bother studying at all. They learned the material and picked it up for any number of reasons. I have a natural affinity for electronics and electronic theory. I've never even had to crack a book to crush my tests. /1

People failed after pouring an entire weekend into it. Should I be penalized because I didn't have to put in even 1/100th the effort? People feel they get cheated because they think hard work should pay off. That's a personal problem they have to surmount. I recommend they write a poem, doesn't matter if it's good or not, then after they spend some time enjoying their creation, just burn it and never show it to anybody else. /2

So if they want to really understand the world, they should take a moment to appreciate that part of it means that it won't all respond to the formula and math. And that specific beats general. In this case, the specific scenario beats out the general combat mechanic because the amount of effort the assassin put in to getting the outcome can be compared to the amount of effort somebody put in to study and get those high marks. Not that it needs to be, but I hope that frames it sufficiently. 3/3