Originally Posted by: DraconusJLM

It's an exercise designed to develop alternate picking abilities.[/quote]

Got it. And part of that is working on the different approaches of inside versus outside picking. I encourage students to work on both so they have options depending on how any given musical phrase works.

And either way you still have to work on getting your pick over the plane of the strings to the next note on another string.

[quote=DraconusJLM]Exercises often do not give an option to play using an easier method.

That is often true. But in the case of developing alternate picking it is very useful to try starting with an upstroke instead of a down. It can also be beneficial to try to play the same notes on different strings to essentially reorganize the phrase. Both of those are sometimes the difference between making a phrase incredibly awkward & difficult to play into something that is much easier because it's more efficient & requires less motion.

More efficient does not always equal easier right away. But it usually does in the long run!