That happened to me in high school. I was in "advanced" freshman bio. Teacher gave me a B. When my parents inquired during a parent-teacher conference, she said I looked like I wasn't paying attention.
Fast forward ten years and the therapist I was seeing for seemingly unrelated reasons diagnoses me with ADHD...
This stuff was never written for the public at large. It was written for the (upper-)middle class. Particularly those who already know something about the subject or enough about the academic/cultural sphere that they can wade through it. A ten page article in N+1 about the decline of orchestras is not targeted at people who don't have some exposure to classical music.
Fast forward ten years and the therapist I was seeing for seemingly unrelated reasons diagnoses me with ADHD...