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Core
Backtracking
Backtracking is systematic search over a tree of partial solutions: at each step you choose an option, explore deeper, and undo the choice before trying the next (choose, explore, unchoose). Pruning kills branches that cannot lead to a valid solution before you waste work on them. Interviews probe it because permutations, combinations, subsets, and constraint problems (N-queens, sudoku) all share this template, and the in-place choose/unchoose pattern avoids re-allocating state at every node, which is the difference between an elegant solution and an exponential memory blowup.
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PRACTICE THIS IN REAL QUESTIONS
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