I can give you prof perspective on this. Going between different stages of education, you can't really double or triple the amount of time you study, but you need to change your study and thinking techniques to learn 2x or 3x more [1].
The problem is that if the teachers try to set up too easy a ramp at the start of a new stage, many students refuse to upgrade their study/thinking techniques. They continue to use suboptimal methods from their last stage, because its easier. But before they know it, they progress to a point where their suboptimal techniques are wildy unrealistic. At this point, they try to upgrade, except its much harder to upgrade your techniques at MATH301 then it is at MATH101.
One way out of it is to jolt incoming students with assessments where the old techniques simply don't work, and they are forced to upgrade immediately. It is kind of cruel, but it works well.
[1] For instance, a freshman PHY101 Mechanics course covers the same material as 1-1.5 years of high school with higher difficulty.
The problem is that if the teachers try to set up too easy a ramp at the start of a new stage, many students refuse to upgrade their study/thinking techniques. They continue to use suboptimal methods from their last stage, because its easier. But before they know it, they progress to a point where their suboptimal techniques are wildy unrealistic. At this point, they try to upgrade, except its much harder to upgrade your techniques at MATH301 then it is at MATH101.
One way out of it is to jolt incoming students with assessments where the old techniques simply don't work, and they are forced to upgrade immediately. It is kind of cruel, but it works well.
[1] For instance, a freshman PHY101 Mechanics course covers the same material as 1-1.5 years of high school with higher difficulty.