Of course, mere rote learning will not suffice.
Nothing is taken for granted and rote memory work should be at a minimum.
Any practice work I've ever seen was done by rote.
This does not apply to formulae got by rote, which are stages on the road to nowhere but second childhood and the grave.
Avicenna was put in charge of a tutor, and his precocity soon made him the marvel of his neighbours, - as a boy of ten who knew by rote the Koran and much Arabic poetry besides.