Well first of all you’re not dying. Or at least I hope you’re not, and no class is a murderer. Let’s get that clear first of all. Because my heart rate jumped a bit when I saw a Reddit post titled “I think I’m dying” followed by a fairly difficult CS class. As long as you keep at it, you’ll be fine.

Now, here’s what I think.

First it is likely unproductive to try to internalize the entirety of only K&R in one week, not to mention whichever other textbook the new professor assigned to you people. So maybe don’t do that.

Second, like I said this is a fairly difficult class that I think could be taught better (although my opinion on that matter counts for approximately nothing; I didn’t read education), and that the only real people who can truly do well in the class and remember all the tricks that try to catch you out on the exams are people who have previous experience with systems programming. So many of your mates in the class likely are also struggling with the class. The consensus about the professor teaching it this semester also seems negative, so that could be something working against you here. But I will urge you to only take this point in for a second, disregard it, and move on to the third.

Third, here’s one way to maybe get better at this. When you try to study material, start from the stuff you are sure you absolutely understand. Then make sure you actually understand that stuff (and that you are not just persuading yourself to believe that you do because you want to stop studying). If you think you understand it, then try to (verbally) explain your understanding to yourself, scrutinizing every step of your reasoning along the way. If you cannot convincingly do this, then start over or (and only if you are sure you cannot do this yourself) visit office hours - you don’t understand it yet. Once you can convincingly do this, then move on to the next thing you don’t understand, and repeat the process. Iterate this way over all the things you don’t understand. If you have done all of this well, you will likely get significantly better at this.

Good luck.