Goal: peak, don’t cram. Cramming the week before actively hurts performance.
- Volume drops ~50%. 1–2 problems/day, medium difficulty, for warmth only.
- Re-read your own notes — not new material. No new topics this week.
- Re-read your story bank once daily. Do not re-memorize; re-familiarize.
- Logistics: test the video setup, the shared doc, the camera, the room, the backup internet. Have water and paper.
- Day before: one easy problem, one story read-through, then stop by noon. Sleep.
Day-of checklist:
- Restate the problem back before writing anything.
- Ask clarifying questions — always, even if the problem seems obvious.
- State the brute force, then improve it. Never sit silently.
- Say the complexity before you’re asked.
- Walk through your own code with a concrete example before declaring done.
- If you’re stuck for 90 seconds, say what you’re considering and why it isn’t working. Silence is scored; struggling out loud is not.