A degree and a chartered accountant...then you may be aware of the benefit of studying past question papers. The system on this side of the pond is very similar to that.
Rote learning is the ability to repeat back what you have learned without necessarily undestanding or being able to apply what was learned. That is not the case here. Each bank of questions contains thousands. In the study books, the questions are presented and relevant reference material is listed, where appropriate a worked example is given. The candidate is then guided through why the other answers are wrong.
As with most multi-choice models, some of the answers are very close therefore the topic has to be understood in order to choose the correct answer. Unless, of course, you are able to memorise the thousands of potential questions.
I see the benefit of this approach being that the candidate's study is directed at the questions he/she will be asked. No red herrings, no time and effort wasted learning peripheral information that is not required for the test.
I would suggest that to be a more sensible and user friendly system, but what do I know?