Isn't the point of doing that to get better results?
I mean, imagine if without drugs I can do a hard slog through the books for 6 hours before giving up; and with drugs I can spend 12 hours anxiously bouncing between tasks and feeling very busy; but I actually learn more by doing the former than the latter - nobody taking study drugs is hoping to spend twice as long for worse results.
Many people using this kind of drugs normally lasted maybe 1 hour or so before giving up (without the drugs). And it often took a long ramp-up to even get to that 1 hour of focus.
> and with drugs I can spend 12 hours anxiously bouncing between tasks and feeling very busy
I guess this is maybe the case when your body isn't yet accustomed to the drug. I don't have any such issue after I got used to the drug (in my case modafinil).
Say unaided, you can get to 85% proficiency in 6 hours and that's about all you can sustain.
With smart drugs, you only get to 75% proficiency in 6 hours but can keep going and will hit 95% in 9 hours.
Think of it like a pick up truck with two gas tanks. It is less efficient than a small car but because of the larger tank it has more range.
For many degrees, you’re absolutely correct though. I remember being envious of such workloads in college simply because of the idea that time spent studying directly correlates to your grade. Engineering degrees, in general, simply show that you know how to learn. Memorization is helpful but alone is not enough to understand concepts and apply them.
Memorizing formulas vs. being able to derive them is a good example here.
Obviously, I can't know if students from the bottom percentile also engaged in that, but all the students I knew that took drugs to perform better, were motivated students that wanted to maximize their grades. And they studied things that required lots of reading and memorization (law, medicine, and similar).
My take was that the kids that used those drugs, were the ones that wanted an extra push on the last 10% - to put it that way.