Skip the picture language section. Better to go through the book skipping a few parts then to stop because you can't do every single exercise the first time through! I just started chapter 4, and judicious skipping has thus far been the right choice. If the options are "skip a little and gain the value of the rest" or "try do it all, but get stuck and quit" choose pragmatism!

Also, a trick I like to do with the exercises is struggle with one for 20 minutes or so, and if I am not making progress, look up the answer. Usually that helps me understand what I was missing enough to then do it myself. That happens maybe 1/5th of the time, and usually because the question was vague or oddly worded, or most commonly, I didn't know how to test that it was correct.