I doubt that. If the materials are limited, then by definition there's less to study. You can choose other things to study, but it's a gamble whether it will be useful.

There are different sorts of studying. To some people, studying means downloading the lecture notes, reviewing their own class notes, getting the slide deck from the professor.. To other people, studing means they actually crack open the assigned texts (which many students didn't bother buying in the first place.)

And then to others it means spending going out and building things using concepts they're learning, not because they want to pass the course but because they're obsessed.

I just started as a teacher, I don't know if that kind of obsession can be cultivated in students through a specific environment or if it's something they bring with them into the class. Or if even trying to bottle that lightning alienates less willing students.

You're in grad-level classes where there are assigned textbooks? Bless!

Prior practice/exposure does not have to be "study".

Sometimes. There were certain topics that I didn’t have to do any studying for and others that took a lot of effort.

Yeah, I had a similar experience. I was bad at some areas no matter how hard I worked, and good at others. To me this seems like solid evidence something like “aptitude” exists. Although, it doesn’t answer questions of nature vs. nurture, whether those different skills result from different experiences earlier in life.