Try it independently: build a study report from a blank file

Can you turn a week’s recorded minutes into a report from a blank file? Use the loops and methods you already know. Decide the steps before opening the solution.

Build with the tools you already know

For study minutes 20, 30, 0, 40, report the total, the number of days meeting a 25-minute goal, and the average across all recorded days, including the zero day. For this exercise the input has at most seven days, each containing 0–1440 whole minutes; these small totals fit in an int. Display minutes as units. For an empty array, use total 0, goal days 0 and average 0.

Before reading the solution, create a fresh Program.cs and make a plan. Aim for two small methods: TotalMinutes and CountGoalDays. Calculate the average in the caller. You may look at language references; first avoid copying the completed course project.

daily minutes [20, 30, 0, 40]
       │
       ├─ add every value ───────> total 90
       ├─ count values >= 25 ───> goal days 2
       └─ total / day count ────> average 22.5

Write and check your attempt

Your output should be:

Total: 90 minutes
Goal days: 2
Average: 22.5 minutes

Try these additional cases before looking below: [25] should produce 25 total, 1 goal day and 25 average; [0, 0] should produce zeros; an empty array should also produce zeros. A day exactly at the goal must count.

Compare with one complete solution

using System;

int[] minutes = { 20, 30, 0, 40 };
int total = TotalMinutes(minutes);
int goalDays = CountGoalDays(minutes, 25);
decimal average = 0;
if (minutes.Length > 0) average = (decimal)total / minutes.Length;

Console.WriteLine($"Total: {total} minutes");
Console.WriteLine($"Goal days: {goalDays}");
Console.WriteLine($"Average: {average.ToString(System.Globalization.CultureInfo.InvariantCulture)} minutes");

static int TotalMinutes(int[] values)
{
    int total = 0;
    foreach (int value in values) total += value;
    return total;
}

static int CountGoalDays(int[] values, int goal)
{
    int count = 0;
    foreach (int value in values)
    {
        if (value >= goal) count++;
    }
    return count;
}

The (decimal) conversion happens before division, preserving the fractional result. ToString with InvariantCulture gives the shown dot in this example regardless of local number-format settings; it is a display choice, not part of the arithmetic rule.

Review your design

Make one extension your own

Add a highest-minutes result. Define the empty-input result as 0. For the given array it should be 40. Start a maximum variable at 0 and compare each value with it. Then add a check for [5, 50, 10], which should give 50. This extension is intentionally small enough to complete without a new language feature.

Explain what you built to another person: the data, the requirements, one boundary check and one choice that keeps the code understandable. If you needed the solution, close it and recreate the important methods in a later sitting.

References: Microsoft — arrays and numeric conversions.