It was an "intro to grad school" type class. The point was simply to build endurance. They made very clear in the class that there was no way we were going to absorb the depth of the papers and told us to bound the amount of time we spent on it clearly so that we don't kill ourselves over it. I like to think of it as marathon practice or breathing practice for folks who played woodwinds; it was just helping us get into the muscle of winnowing papers effectively.