[javajosh]

I think this shows a lack of self-doubt, which can be deadly. Those problems acted as verification to yourself that you understood the theory and its application. If you truly understood the material, then the problems would be zero effort. However, if you struggled with them it's a signal that you don't know what you think you know.

[TheCleric]

As someone who had an a similar experience to whom you are replying to, this was definitely not the case. The problems were easy, but were not "zero effort". Even if it takes you only a few minutes to do the steps and show the work per problem, then that could still take you 30-60 minutes to complete the assignment. That was time I'd spend doing things I wanted to do (fun in the short term, a nightmare in the long term).

[wholinator2]

I think usually the easy problems are just the "burn-in" time to solidify understanding, but there's usually a couple hard problems that take way longer to work through and those will teach you the intuition. Doing simple calculation is different than being forced to conceptualize the entire path from starting information to system to evolution to result.