Liking school is a very different thing from being any good at it and she didn't teach herself ancient Sumerian (which must be a much easier language in the Buffyverse than here as Giles can speak it) she translated the single phrase "you can't just watch, you have to see" then gave up. I could use a dictionary just fine when I was 16 and that was before googlefish existed but being good at research means more thn just being able to put in the hours to do essentially mechanical translation it means having the higher order skills to identify the right question and find the quickest way to the answer.