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Week 5Day 30 of 35

Mock Interview Workflow

Practice the full loop: understand, choose a pattern, explain clearly, code, then test.

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0 of 3 problems solved

Pattern Focus

Mock Interview Workflow

Practice the full loop: understand, choose a pattern, explain clearly, code, then test.

Pattern Checklist
  • Did I restate the problem clearly before solving it?
  • Can I explain why the chosen pattern fits?
  • Did I leave time to test edge cases out loud?
🎤New to DSA? Start here 🧠

Mock interviews are not only about getting the answer. They are about making your thinking visible. A strong interview answer usually sounds like this: clarify the problem, say the pattern, explain the tradeoff, code the idea, then test it. Good communication makes the logic easier to trust.

In interviews, invisible thinking is almost as risky as wrong thinking.

How to think about it
  1. 1Restate the problem in plain words.
  2. 2Call out the likely pattern and why it fits.
  3. 3Outline the algorithm before coding.
  4. 4Code the clean version, then test edge cases out loud.
🚧Common Mistake

Going silent and coding immediately makes it hard for the interviewer to follow your judgment, even if the final code is decent.

🔍Problem Hints

Design Add and Search Words Data Structure

Use a Trie for addWord. For search, DFS recursively and treat '.' as a wildcard that tries every child node.

Word Search II

Build a Trie from the word list. DFS the board while traversing the Trie simultaneously so invalid word paths are pruned early.

Problems

Mock Interview: Two Sum

easy

Design Add and Search Words Data Structure

medium

Word Search II

hard