Now, imagine that you are the same freshman first-semester student, but you are completely deaf instead of blind. Reading and writing are easy for you, and you have always excelled in your studies. You are fluent in sign language and have even studied Spanish to where you can read and write it comfortably.
Imagine getting that same special fourth week assignment, where the instructor asks everyone to review a video and several instructional documents before an important class session. The instructional documents are not a problem for you and you spend plenty of time studying them for your next class. However, when you pull up the video, you find that there are no captions at all - just a series of pictures and diagrams and a speaker talking at a whiteboard. You can get a general sense of what the pictures and diagrams are about, but you know you're missing all of the explanations that speaker is giving, and without them, you can't figure out how everything fits together. So, when you show up to class the next day, you find yourself unprepared for the in-class discussion and quiz.