Honestly curious, how long does it take to do an average medium problem and pass all test cases? Are you spending like, an hour or ten minutes? Somewhere in between?
Depends a lot on the problem, for medium probably between 15-30 min for most. I have interviewed at FAANG companies for software roles and done the whole on-site leet coding gauntlet. Did about an hour a night for a week total prep. I can solve their problems, what gets me is when I finished early and they ask more academic follow up questions. Like getting backed into a corner and having to admit I have no idea what big-O notation is.
How do you know that scanning an array looking for a number in a sorted array vs. searching for it is slower? Just kind of intuitively? Do you have your own terms for it? I too sometimes get dinged because I use the non academic terms for things...
Can be anywhere from 1 minute to hours, depends on the problem. The whole classification thing is kind of ridiculous, because some hard problems are easy and some mediums are hard.