Academia

That cuts both ways. As an occasional teacher, I try to teach the syllabus but students keep asking, "is there going to be a test?" or "will this be in the exam?"

I'm not blaming students per se, but educational systems that focus, as you say, on tests to gauge student performance. If you're primed to only adopt short term knowledge for the purpose of passing an exam, I'm not sure how much you'll really retain afterward.