DSA Month 1 — Calibration

Three-month map
Month 1
Aug 17 – Sep 15
Protocol + calibration on already-covered topics. Output: two comparable scores.
Month 2
Sep 16 – Oct 15
Graphs and DP (never studied before), plus heaps, greedy, backtracking.
Start date is fixed and does not move regardless of Month 1.
Month 3
Oct 16 – Nov 15
Mixed unlabeled practice under time, weak-area repair, tries and bit manipulation as small fill-ins.

Month 1 — Four phases

Phase 1
Java fluency
Aug 17–19
Phase 2
Cold diagnostic
Aug 20–31
Phase 3
Targeted repair
Sep 1–9
Phase 4
Re-test
Sep 10–15

Phase 1 · Java fluency · Aug 17–19

Three mornings of blank-page writing, from memory, no lookups. Then a 5-minute warm-up every remaining day of the month.
Item Day 1 Day 2 Day 3

Phase 2 · Cold diagnostic · Aug 20–31

Work the shuffled Bucket A below, in shuffled order, one problem per day, no topic labels visible until after scoring. (See Section 5.)

Phase 3 · Targeted repair · Sep 1–9

Phase 4 · Re-test · Sep 10–15

Bucket B below, same rules, same scoring. Compare against Phase 2. (See Section 5.)

The canvas — approach any problem

00:00
Stage 1 — approach only · 10:00 alert · 30:00 hard stop
Draft kept until you clear it

Bucket A · Phase 2 diagnostic · 25 problems

# Problem Score Elapsed Notes Hidden topic

Bucket B · Phase 4 re-test · 12 problems

# Problem Score Elapsed Notes Hidden topic

Scoreboard

Bucket A — Phase 2

Median elapsed: —
Logged: 0 / 25

Bucket B — Phase 4

Median elapsed: —
Logged: 0 / 12

Data

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