I had the same prof for several courses. His exams were pretty straight forward, but always contained a "tough question". In order to get that tough question,

I had the same prof for several courses. His exams were pretty straight forward, but always contained a "tough question". In order to get that tough question, you could carefully read the book, read his assignment solutions, and pay close attention to his caveat warnings in lectures... One of the three would typically contain the tough question. Or, you could just read the book, do the assignments, and accept ~95% on the final exam as a maximum grade. A ~95% cap, for a lot less work, is a good deal. Taking the deal is probably the right call for most people. That being said, the thing I wish someone explained well is how amazing lambdas can be. I understood the benefits of list/array/stream processing on first glance, but it took a few years before I really understood the practical application of lambdas.