1. I'm not saying a week for preparation overall. I'm saying a week to learn the core algorithms and data structures. Frankly, that's probably much less than a

1. I'm not saying a week for preparation overall. I'm saying a week to learn the core algorithms and data structures. Frankly, that's probably much less than a week to learn. 2. Yes, it does throw false negatives. Lots of people get hired with zero prep though. I generally say about a month of prep is where you hit pretty low returns from more time. But that doesn't mean that you need a month, or that a month will be enough for you. 3. I'm not sure I see your point here. If coding interview prep is a different skillset from coding competitions, then you wouldn't do coding competitions in order to do interview preps. 4. Some candidates do shut down because it's not what they're used to. A well-trained interviewer can mitigate this to some extent (not always). Some people will also shut down at a computer. Interviews will always be an artificial environment and people can freeze for different reasons. At a whiteboard, it's often a bit easier to unfreeze candidates and create a happier atmosphere. 5. That's fine. As long as I can read it, it's fine. And if I can't read it and you can explain to me what you're writing, that will also work.