Learn English – What does “I’m partial to …” mean

It is indeed a rhetorical use of 'catch up with': a deliberately uncommon use, which attracts readers' attention so they will read the explanation.

The author contrasts the attitude he attributes to older people—that they are slaves to “long term plans that basically take a big chunk of your soul over a long period of servitude”—with the attitude of his own generation—“Life nowadays is INDEED about the NOW!“

His “catch up” figure thus represents the long-term plans of his elders as an unceasing effort to get ‘in front of’ who they are, while people of his own generation abandon that pursuit and turn back (so ‘back is the new front’) in order to ‘catch up with’ who they are.

When you complete an assignment, problem, task, etc in school, you are usually awarded points, marks, etc. In simple terms, you can regard these points as credit. There are four expressions dealing with credit that I can think of:

1. Full credit
2. Partial credit
3. Half credit
4. No credit

Full credit means you get 100% of the points, or full marks. No credit means you get 0 points, marks, etc. Half credit means you get half of the points. Partial credit means you get somewhere between 0 and 100 (exclusive) points. How much you get depends on the grading scheme or the grader's judgement.

Sometimes, there is no point scheme and the credit scheme above is used. In such a case, partial credit is unclear but still means between full and no credit.

So in your example, it means that you cannot even receive some credit, or some points, for your answer. It means you get zero credit, or zero points.

As a side note, I'm not sure why, but you cannot say I got 75 credits on the last test, for example, at least in AmE. You can say I got 75 points or I got a 75.