Weird lab instructions and still annoyed about the first assignment

Doing lab #5, my partner and I didn't have much trouble completing it. However, throughout the whole process of the lab, we were instructed many times to read over certain documents that were supposed to clear up concepts and aspects of the lab, which it did for the most part. One of those documents we had to read was about list comprehensions. This is exactly what I found odd: most students in this course (including myself) just learned about list comprehensions at the beginning of the semester during lecture; unless I am mistaken, there has not been a single lab where we were asked to use, practice and further understand list comprehensions. I mean, is that not the point of labs (especially with a term test just around the corner)? The instructions were specific in letting us know not to use list comprehensions, which would probably make writing the code much easier and more efficient (even though it would take us some time getting used to writing list comprehensions). In a course where efficiency and simplicity are key, I am still flustered at this.

On top of that, I am still very confused at the instructions that were provided for the first assignment. I admit, my partner and I did not start working on the assignment early enough (we were obviously too busy with other courses haha) but even then, only managing to solve the mysteries behind steps 1-4, we felt even more in the dark just reading the step 5 instructions. It never mentioned what direction we need to take or how exactly we needed to approach step 5. I really cannot wait to read the solutions to this assignment and laugh at how far fetch'd or how surprisingly simple the solutions might have been... Time and organization did get the best of us.