Actually from what I'm seeing only short-term memorization is the only skill prevalent here. Sure we have some problem solvers (e.g. me, and 5 others from 230 total) but the rest simply memorizes everything for an exam and forgets about it a couple of days later. Considering that those people are supposed to be the most intelligent by our schooling system it's really a shock (most of the have marks in the 1.0-1.5 range, meaning top marks. I actually only had 2.1 which was just above average).
I liked roman history, because the teacher was also a physics teacher, and he then asked questions about how the roman architecture managed to not fall apart, or how an onager or skorpion worked/how they managed to build such huge houses, etc
