many people moving to embedded platforms from PC based programming will not have had much need for bitmasking. it depends on what kind of application you have been working on.
but yes. you should already know this. that's why i posted the comment.
i used the word "intermediate" because i didn't want to scare people away from trying a C microcontroller project as it is perfectly possible to make use of other peoples libraries without this level of knowledge.
dunk.