If you took CS in college, you learned algorithms and proofs then. If you did not take CS, you are probably lost when asked these questions. It takes time and

If you took CS in college, you learned algorithms and proofs then. If you did not take CS, you are probably lost when asked these questions. It takes time and lots of practice (which CS grads did in college) to learn these things. Once you get the hang of it and are good at using DP to solve these problems, you'll probably remember it for the rest of your life. And, a handful of solutions will solve most all of these questions. The 'lots of practice' you do in college is basically training you to quickly identify which solution to apply to the problem you face.