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elharo comments on The Truth About Mathematical Ability - LessWrong
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Calculus 2 is where I hit the limits of my conceptual abilities. I am very bad at "playing the game" in this way, so I haven't moved beyond that yet.
I think it's wrong to put too much emphasis on a contrast between "playing the game" and "understanding the material", though. My feeling is that if I became better at playing games, paying attention to detail, being more conscientious about my work, then I would also improve my conceptual understanding after a while.
I'll let you in on a secret: almost everyone hits the limit in Calculus 2. For that matter, most people hit the limit in Calculus 1 so you were ahead of the curve. That doesn't mean no one understands calculus, or that you can't learn it. It just means most students need more than one pass through the material. For instance, I don't think I really understood integration until I learned numerical analysis and the trapezoidal rule in grad school.
There's a common saying among mathematicians: "No understands Calculus until they teach it."
I didn't understand a lot of math I aced until much later.
Well, yes.
This may just be that you don't really understand any area of math well until you've taught it.
I've known professors who decided that the best way to learn a new topic was to teach a class in it.