[gambiting]

I have to agree with you. Especially the ceasar cipher example is literally about following the steps, everything is outlined in an almost step-by-step fashion. The only part of the exercise that might be new to OP is programming in C - but the algorithm itself is stupidly well explained and the bullet points literally tell them what to do. It's as if they read the first paragraph and decided it's some arcane voodoo magic so it's not worth reading any further.