Has anyone finished the book cover to cover

#1

I finished C0, C1 and C2 (7 days preparation).
Now I am trying to read the whole book from the beginning although I feel burnt out.

Has anyone finished all the questions? How long did it take you and how did you do it?

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#2

One of my friends finished all the problems from section II (Java version of EPI). These are a total of ~190 problems. He followed the process of:

  1. Read problem. Can I solve it?
    If yes -> solve it.
    If no -> try for 15 mins. If still unable, study solution.
  2. Read variants for each problem. (I don’t know if he actually coded up each variant.)

This whole process took him around 2 months. This was ~2 hours of study each weekday, and ~6 hours of study each day of the weekend.

I am going through the same process with some variations:

  1. Read problem. Can I solve it?
    If yes -> solve it.
    If no -> try for 30 mins. If still unable, study solution.
  2. Read variants for each problem. Make sure able to solve/code each one of them.
  3. Once all of section II is done, go back and revise each solution.
  4. Revise again.

I expect this process to take me 3 months, maybe 4. I am in the middle of Chapter 6 currently (step 1), and its been over 2 weeks now.

Hope this helps.

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#3

:open_mouth:
Thanks for your reply. I am also trying to do more or less the same although the process is very slow and tiring for me.
I work in a startup 10 hour work day is a minimum. The worst part is that these 10+ hours are mentally draining.
With this process, I will be prepared in next 3 months or so. Seems like a long time!!!

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#4

For me personally, i don’t look at the solutions until i actually solve it to verify my solution, otherwise takes the fun out of it. If i can’t solve it within reasonable time, i postpone thinking to different day. Some difficult problems (with ninjas), took a few tries over several days or more. I only solved about 50 problems so far.

But i guess for someone in more of a hurry the other approach is better.

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#5

Yup. Same approach as @yevvi . I don’t look at the solutions at all. Every few days, I spend at least 30 minutes on each problem that I have no idea how to solve. Surprisingly, eventually even the toughest ones crack. But it takes lots of perseverance and patience. On some of the more difficult problems, it’s taken weeks to even get to the point where I have an initial idea for a solution. And often that initial idea turns out to be a dud. So I have to put in more time and effort. But to me it’s worth it. I’m also solving all the variants. I try to spend 5 hours a day.

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