DSA Without Fear cheat sheet

• Why DSA Feels Hard (and Why It Isn't): The real reasons people struggle, the myths that make it worse, and the pattern-first way out.
• How to Practise So It Sticks: Fewer problems, better reps: the three-pass method, spaced revision and when to look at the answer.
• A Framework for Any Problem: Understand, brute force, spot the pattern, optimise, code, test — and a playbook for when you are stuck.
• Big-O the Easy Way: Count loops, not symbols — and read the constraints to know which complexity the problem wants.
• Recursion Without Fear: Trust the function: base case, smaller problem, combine. Recursion trees and the call stack.
• Java Toolkit for DSA: The collections and idioms you will use in every problem, and the pitfalls that cost marks.