I started my cp journey in Feb of 2022, initially I thought of dsa as cp and used to do leetcode a lot, then I slowly got know about codeforces and codechef in mid February. damn all the problems looks so easy but were so difficult to do it while coding, so I decided to study algorithms then try it again, so rest of feb I devoted to only studying them, but when I came back in March damn still couldn't do any hardly. I thought to myself I am not meant for it, should leave cp and try dev.
But something back of my mind said to try again as a game , just a win or lose will add to my experience, so I kept on trying problems and did many problems , eventually I got the hang of it and was able to solve some, and at that time it became fun for me, I started thinking of it as a game, which helps me a lot cause I could compare it with CSGO (only game I used to play).
So I knew I had to put in a lot of efforts even to see a slight progress, and I am right now in the process of doing so , solving problems above my caliber and giving contest and not caring about the rating.
I am thinking of participating in only Div 2 contests and try to solve consistently doing A and B, s it a good idea? My rating right now is 927 and I have given about 4 contests
I can suggest writing in different paragraphs. That would make reading more agreeable ;)
It is is my first time typing a blog and while typing I typed in paragraphs but after I posted all the spaces and line changes were gone :(
It looks better now? Giving two line breaks worked :)
Unless you're in div1, there's not much reason to only participate in one kind of contest or another. I mean, don't virtually participate in a div1 only, but if you're talking about live contests, you can definitely do div3 or div4s too.
Global rounds are fine too because they are essentially div1 and div2 combined, which means they'll have all the problems in a div2, but there's a chance you'll get to beat someone who is red, which is a huge ego boost.
Shen you're new, I'd focus on problems which are difficult to implement or a lot of code. The important part to getting better at that level isn't so much making good observations, but being able to code literally anything you can think of. Once coding any algorithm you have in your head isn't a blocker anymore, then you can quickly learn the observational stuff and jump up in rating (like I did, if you check my graph).
(to be clear, A and B div2 problems rarely require much code, and are mostly very simple, which is why they aren't always a great thing to practice if you're newer)
That helps a lot,thank you. Which rating problems would you suggest I should be focusing on now? I am currently comfortable with mkst 1200 to 1300 rated problems, and am currently doing the Atoj ladder
For now, I'd say find a div3, VP it or participate live, and then upsolve all of the problems in it that you couldn't get in contest. (though A2OJ ladders also work quite well as practice)
Ideally try each of them yourself first and if you get stuck and don't make any progress for ~30 minutes, you can do something like read the editorial, or perhaps watch a solution video if you find those easier to understand like I do.
Sure it is a good idea? Many div. 3 problems require knowledge of CP algorithms. For example, in the last round we had to use DFS and its variants.
The fact that he's red makes that idea good enough.
I mean, one of the problems required a BFS, and another required knowing the idea of preorder and postorder on trees. Those are both very useful algorithms to learn which show up all the time, and there's not really any feasible way of getting to purple or yellow without knowing them.
Any advice how should I progress now?