Hey Everyone,
I have just started practicing on static A2OJ ladder link for rating <=1300. I could solve most of the problems without looking at editorial and most of them were from older Div2 contests.
Recently, I participated in a div 2 contest and couldn't solve any question. Virtually Participated in couple of recent Div 2 contest still couldn't solve any. Then I tried Div 3 and Div 4 and I could solve couple of questions in them.Thus I think recent div 2 contests are harder than div 2 contests conducted before introduction of div 3 and div 4.
Now comming to the point considering the low frequency of Div 3 and Div 4 contest, what should be the approach to practice problems so that i am able to solve div 2 A and B. I tried grinding through the recent Div 2A and 2B and found those very difficult. when I solve recent problems with ratring from 1000-1100 I am not able to solve them at all whereas I am able to solve most of the problems with same rating for older div2 contests . I have solved close to 100 800 rated questions(and i am able to solve them) Thus i dont really want to drop the rating of problems below 1000.
A2OJ is too old, dont do problems from there. c2-ladders is also a bit outdated if you're doing <=1300.
then how to practice in range 1100-1500 ?
Go to https://codeforces.me/problemset?tags=1100-1500
even a2oj is old, it still has many very cool problems with useful techniques, especially in 1800+ rated problems
Three and a half years ago I wanted to practice solving problems <= 1000. I could easily solve 2-3 problems a day rated 1000. I solved close to 50 problems. A year and a half later they introduced more div 3 rounds and later div 4. After that all problem setters started to estimate 900 problems as 800 and even some 1000 problems as 800. Because there is no gradation in between you can basically face a 900 problem as 800 and there you go. And it's really complicated to get out of this trap because to get to the actual algorithmic problems you have to pass these div A and B which is basically ad-hoc problem that only very well trained contestants or (those with very good math background) can solve quickly enough to progress. So you have to be honest with yourself. Do you have a good enough math background or you did good in computer science classes? If you didn't and it's not really your goal to be good in it but you want to prepare for interviews it's better not to dedicate your time to improve here. The 800 and 900 problems are getting more and more complicated. Even if you solve 50 problems of 800/900/1000 you won't see much progress, because they will get even more complicated next year and will be estimated the same even though they should be +200 points higher. And the complexity of these "easy" ad-hoc problems is only limited to problem setter's imagination.
try using acodedaily.com because it is more updated with the newest problems
I don't know about 2A 2B but there are some 2C that are harder than 1E for me.