Must-Know LeetCode Topics & Questions
Essential LeetCode Topics & Patterns
1. Arrays
Patterns: Sliding window, prefix sum, two pointers, sorting Must-know Questions: - Maximum Subarray
(Kadane’s) — 53 - Best Time to Buy & Sell Stock I/II/III/IV — 121, 122, 123, 188 - Two Sum / 3Sum / 4Sum
— 1, 15, 18 - Product of Array Except Self — 238 - Container With Most Water — 11 - Trapping Rain
Water — 42 - Subarray Sum Equals K — 560 - Move Zeroes — 283 - Merge Intervals — 56
2. Strings
Patterns: Sliding window, hash map, two pointers, string matching Must-know Questions: - Longest
Substring Without Repeating Characters — 3 - Valid Anagram — 242 - Group Anagrams — 49 -
Minimum Window Substring — 76 - Palindrome Substrings — 647 - Implement strStr() — 28
3. Linked List
Patterns: Fast/slow pointers, dummy node, reversing list, cycle detection Must-know Questions: -
Reverse Linked List — 206 - Linked List Cycle — 141 - Merge Two Sorted Lists — 21 - Remove Nth Node
From End — 19 - Copy List with Random Pointer — 138 - Reorder List — 143
4. Trees / Binary Trees
Patterns: DFS (pre/in/post), BFS, recursion, tree DP Must-know Questions: - Maximum Depth / Min
Depth — 104, 111 - Validate Binary Search Tree — 98 - Symmetric Tree — 101 - Binary Tree Level Order
Traversal — 102 - Lowest Common Ancestor — 236 - Path Sum / Path Sum II — 112, 113 - Serialize /
Deserialize Binary Tree — 297
5. Graphs
Patterns: BFS, DFS, Union-Find, topological sort Must-know Questions: - Number of Islands — 200 -
Course Schedule I/II — 207, 210 - Clone Graph — 133 - Word Ladder — 127 - Graph Valid Tree — 261 -
Pacific Atlantic Water Flow — 417
6. Dynamic Programming
Patterns: 1D DP, 2D DP, memoization, bottom-up, state compression Must-know Questions: - Climbing
Stairs — 70 - House Robber I/II/III — 198, 213, 337 - Longest Increasing Subsequence — 300 - Coin
Change — 322 - Minimum Path Sum — 64 - Decode Ways — 91 - Unique Paths / Unique Paths II — 62,
63 - Maximum Subarray (Kadane’s) — 53 - Edit Distance — 72
1
7. Backtracking / Recursion
Patterns: DFS, combination/permutation, subset generation Must-know Questions: - Subsets — 78 -
Permutations — 46 - Combination Sum I/II — 39, 40 - Word Search — 79 - N-Queens — 51
8. Heaps / Priority Queue
Patterns: Min-heap / max-heap, sliding window Must-know Questions: - Top K Frequent Elements — 347
- Kth Largest Element in Array — 215 - Merge K Sorted Lists — 23 - Sliding Window Maximum — 239
9. Hashing
Patterns: Frequency counting, two sum, prefix sum with hashmap Must-know Questions: - Two Sum —
1 - Subarray Sum Equals K — 560 - Valid Anagram — 242 - Group Anagrams — 49 - Longest Consecutive
Sequence — 128
10. Two Pointers
Patterns: Opposite ends, sliding window, fast/slow Must-know Questions: - Two Sum II — 167 -
Container With Most Water — 11 - 3Sum / 3Sum Closest — 15, 16 - Trapping Rain Water — 42 - Remove
Duplicates from Sorted Array — 26
Key Patterns to Master
1. Sliding Window → substring, subarray sums
2. Prefix Sum → subarray sum problems
3. Kadane’s → max subarray problems
4. Two Pointers → sorted array or string
5. Fast & Slow → cycles in linked lists
6. DFS / BFS → trees & graphs
7. Dynamic Programming → optimal substructure
8. Backtracking → permutations, combinations, subsets
9. Heap → top-k, merge k sorted lists
