There was a couple famous papers from a few years ago asking why computer science students, sorted by ability, seemed to form two clusters.

In one of the studies they got incoming CS students to fill out a multiple choice exam on programming, before the class had even started. Then they looked for hints in their exam results to see if they predicted the end of semester grade.

Turned out following this strategy was an incredibly strong predictor of success in computer science. Some students somehow got 0 (or close to it) in the multiple choice test. But the researchers looked at their answers, and could see that the student was forming hypotheses about the questions. Even if they got all the answers wrong, they answered all of them with a consistent idea of what the computer programs might have meant.

Weak students just answered each question individually based on vibe, without using what they learned (or figured out) from other questions.