There's a question in my mind that, why do some people are able to achieve candidate master by just solving 600-700 questions, whereas few are not even able to reach expert after solving 1000+ question, I'm really concerned about this because i have started CP few months back and don't want to go on a wrong path, so I wanted to know what mistake these people do? so that i won't repeat those mistakes. for example https://codeforces.me/profile/Mr_Frodo, he have solved 1000+ question, and still not able to achieve Expert.
Note : I'm not trying to discredit anyone, just asking so that we can I can learn.
Without trying you'll never see what's wrong path for you. Personally, if I knew what I was supposed to do here to grow at the most optimal way right off the bat — I would now have way more rating. So it is okay to do something wrong, you just have to realize it, change the way and never do same mistakes again.
Solving questions is not enough. Try to solve questions on every topic. Try to solve harder problems or problems out of your comfort zone. Learn new concepts every day. Try to upsolve after the contest. Don't solve the problem of one difficulty (let's say 800, as most people solve 500+ questions of 800 difficulty which is not so beneficial).
For the starting there are 2 types of people who have experience in competitive programming and others which doesn't . If you are the beginner in competitive programming then you will need to spend time with 800-1200 probelms too and you will solve around 400 of that ones only , whereas ones who are already somewhat experienced in it won't even try those and directly jump to the 1300 rating range and teach 1600 range with only 300-400 questions.. Basically practice is important but the quality of the problems are more important. Like i Never solved 800-1200 since i had experience before .
Another thing where people fail is time management they give 7-8 hours to a single question and their mindset become like that only and they need time to solve problems do when contest comes they are unable to solve the problems in a given time span which eventually lead to not enough increase in rating, that why time based practice is very important which most of us don't do.
Another problem i have seen with people is afraid to see the editorials, there is no shame is seeing them because with them only you will learn new approaches .
For reference i will show you 2 users :
https://codeforces.me/profile/manan.bansal.1806
https://codeforces.me/profile/camlot_e
See you can clearly see what's going on here .
Tips i would give to the beginners:-
Feel free to text for any queries. Have a good day
Is there possibilities that the first kind of people you said have done much exercises in other platforms and you can't see that.
yes i believe thas what happens in most cases @graygoo_401