That the student has a tendency to make an effort to study as little as possible has a completely natural explanation: striving for the lowest energy level.
Group work is necessary. It gives you a chance to blame someone else when things go wrong.
If an experiment happens to work, then something has gone wrong!
If the prac goes wrong, rapidly clean everything away, before the teacher suspects anything, and then copy the neighbours results.
All great discoveries are made by mistake. (In spite of this we haven't discovered anything yet!)
First Lab Law: It works better if you plug it in.
Second Lab Law: Hot glass looks exactly like cool glass...
Never repeat a successfull experiment.
When you are solving problems it is helpfull to know the answers.
Draw the graph first, then plot the results.
Bribes will get even the most incomplete ..
Even under the most strictly controlled conditions, the organism will behave exactly as it pleases.
The more you study for an exam, the more insecure you become about what answer they want to you to give.
80% of the exam is based on the lecture one missed or the chapter one didn't read.
... however, there is a life after the exam.
When you don't know what you're doing any longer:
That which you don't understand = Math
That which doesn't work = Physics
That which is green or crawls = Biology
That which stinks = Chemistry
P.S. Newtons Unknown Law of Gravitation: A bird in your hand is safer than a bird flying over your head.