No one really said anything about shortcuts. Building maps of knowledge that have logical progressions and connections is so much more fulfilling than rote memorization. I can either memorize that the Iron Age came after the Bronze Age or I can weave a story with as many details as I can find and understand the inner workings of how the transition from the Bronze Age to the Iron Age happened.

You can also identify patterns within domains, which is a pretty common way to begin tackling problems or questions that you don’t really know but can start making an educated guess about.

This is just a guess: maybe thought experiments? In law, that might be randomly picking/generating cases and arguing the points to rehearse knowledge. In history, similarly it could mean role-playing historical scenarios and considering the individuals involved and the politics of the day.

I'm imagining these as group activities, not something one would do alone.

I also freely admit my naivety regarding these subjects.

Finally, I don't think these or similar approaches are "short cuts". Quite the opposite.

You write about it.

I dual majored in history in college in the 90s. The best professors made you write a paper every class that would fit on the front of a college ruled looseleaf paper that would be more comfortable to write on 3-4 pages.

The process of writing and editing taught you to think. Journalism writing before the shit-fest of online news was similar. 6 editors would wield the sword over whatever you wrote.

I think there's a very useless and useful way of memorizing, say, history or biology, and the useless way is probably better for passing exams, and the useful way is better for, everything else.

The useless way is: let me memorize all of the dates of the US Presidents. If the question is "When did Ulysses Grant become President?" you remember it's 1869.

The useful way is, let me learn about each Presidential administration and what baggage it inherited from the previous administration and passed onto the next one. Then, if the question is "When did Ulysses Grant become President?" you think, well Lincoln was assassinated shortly after the end of the Civil War in 1865, Johnson served out his term but definitely didn't get another, so Grant would have started in 1869.