ABSTRACT
Facility in acquiring cognitive skills, such as those associated with programming computers or troubleshooting electronics equipment, is popularly regarded as an indication of general intellectual proficiency. At least part of the reason for this is that learning new skills is intellectually demanding and thereby discriminating. We generally avoid learning new skills when the old ones are adequate, even barely adequate, because skill learning is such an intellectually excruciating process. And mathematics, physics, and computer science classes, which can be characterized as emphasizing the acquisition of novel cognitive skills, as opposed to the accumulation of domain facts, are generally regarded as the most difficult in the college curriculum.
