Hello codeforces!
I recently began to notice that my rating began to drop significantly. I couldn't even solve 2 problems from yesterday's Division 2, although the number of people who solved B or C exceeded 18,000!
This is already the 4th contest where I have lost my rating. This won't do anymore. My goal is to reach a rating of 1200 before the summer.
Can anyone tell me what topics, and in general, what should I do in order to reach a pupil in such a time?
Thank you in advance and wish you all the BEST!
Plus, I want to continue blogging about my progress in CP:)
List of topics needed to reach pupil:
What about programming topics?
You should be good with the syntax of your language and you should know when to use things like sets/dictionaries to reduce time complexity. Also learn binary search.
Practice. D2A/B often don't need more than some neat observations. Perhaps binary search will be useful, but std::set will usually suffice.
cry
Things to do:
attempt A-C of prev Div3,4 contests, If you are comfortable doing it upsolve D
Most of the ABC are greedy and adhoc and they sum up on 3-4 cases, so make sure to scribble alot while solving problem
you can solve and attempt atcoder's beginner contest too, its better for learning new ideas and algorithms.
good things take time, enjoy the journey
Things not to do:
Codeforces does not improve your programming skills if you're just starting out. I would suggest to get a good grip over language (C++ say) and understand fundamental algorithms (specifically greedy, number theory, dynamic programming, divide and conquer). Also, dont forget to 'upsolve' problems of a contest which you feel you can solve but couldn't during the contest.
PS: I was thinking of creating a blog for beginner CPers. Let me know if I should.
Yes Sorlag! You should! would be very helpful
You really shouldn't — there are already $$$10^{37}$$$ blogs out there on this topic, and beginners would benefit more from actually solving problems rather than another "how to practice" blog.
If you train more, you'll grow up. I wish you good luck.
As a beginner, watching contest reviews on YouTube really helped me to understand the fundamentals.
i feel like I'm improving my speed and my understanding a lot when someone explains a problem i couldn't solve during the contest.