I'm actually kind of the opposite of Brun in this regard. I'm not great at remembering specific facts - when was the Magna Carta signed? 1200-something? - but I'm good at remembering the general idea of things - The Magna Carta was signed, and it limited the King's power.
I always did great on tests with very little effort. In a multiple choice question, if you're asking me when William the Conqueror invaded England, and one of the choices is 1066, I'll get that right, I'll recognize seeing that date. (while trying to wikipedia this, it took a few minutes, because I thought it was 1266). If it's an essay, I can say "in the early part of the millenium..." and then go on to talk about "the battles" and their lasting effects on England.
I see the "general idea" of things. I see facts, I read about facts, I see how they fit into the picture I have of the thing they're relative to, then I forget the specific facts but remember the impact, and when I see more facts, I can fit them into the picture while forgetting their specifics. When given a choice, I can usually recognize the specifics I've seen, but I can't remember them without prompting.
My major weakness was always length and citations, they'd want like a dozen pages of essay, and I could make the point in a page or two. And the citations...again, I remember the general idea of things; I'd always be writing that, and then I'd have to try to find a quote I could shove in their like a giant dildo that didn't interrupt the flow of what I was saying. The best that you could say of most of my citations was that they were pointless.
Anyway, for me, opposite of Brun; the facts aren't in my head, I could get the idea to go on the paper just fine, but then it needed far more to actually pass.
Edit: Well I'll be damned. I quizzed myself: when was the Magna Carta signed? My guess was 1214, and Wikipedia says 1215. I'm not usually that close.