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pwned's blog

Streaming my Informatics Training (ThemeCPs)
By pwned, 6 months ago, In English

Hey everyone, I'll be streaming my informatics training on my PHCuber YouTube channel! Here, I'll practice using ThemeCPs, which are two-hour mock contests with four problems. I've done many such practice contests in the past, and I hope that sharing my problem-solving method from a first-person perspective could benefit your competitive programming journey!

My 21st stream (held on 8/15/24) can be seen here so that you know what you're expecting! https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LKUR1i0ta3g

I'll be streaming as time permits, mainly in the evening for GMT+8 (China / Philippine time), which is around noon / early afternoon in GMT.

Once again, I hope you enjoy my streams and find them beneficial! I've noticed a lack of yellow-rated coders on YouTube, and I hope to fill that gap! Perhaps I'll make a blog in the future detailing what ThemeCP is and how it can supplement your informatics training.

See you in my future streams! Don't forget to like and subscribe so you don't miss any of them ^^

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6 months ago, # |
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I hope you enjoy my streams and find them insightful! ^^

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5 months ago, # |
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can you please tell the steps for starting a mock? I didn't get it.

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    5 months ago, # ^ |
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    I’l go more into detail some time soon! Right now, I’m still testing which method works best, and it’s still in “beta”.

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    6 hours ago, # ^ |
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    Hi! Sorry for this late reply. I'm not the original author of the ThemeCP mechanism, but I have been using ThemeCP for a while now :))

    The steps to starting a mock are:

    1. Pick a random tag. It's better if the tag doesn't really spoil the main ideas of a problem or lead you to tunnel vision on a particular approach. For example, "math" is probably fine but something like "greedy" might make you tunnel vision into a greedy approach, so avoid that.

    2. Determine your starting level. This could be seen in the level sheet provided by pwned in https://docs.google.com/spreadsheets/d/1gdD-syEpfy10Vz1f5UAm5eKiV_UAEdG-C4jrouN57bs/edit#gid=643520641

    3. Pick 4 random problems corresponding to the difficulties at your level. I personally go to the AC server to pick these problems, since they have a bot for picking random problems that allow you to specify a random tag.

    4. Start a 2-hour timer and start solving! Every time you solve a problem, note the cumulative time (i.e., time taken to solve all problems up until that point) in the tracker sheet. Again, to emphasize: you don't just input the time taken on any single problem, you input the TOTAL time taken.

    5. That's it! The ThemeCP tracker should do the computations for you ^^

    You can also temporarily pause a mock in between if there are external circumstances that prevent you from doing everything in one sitting (though of course it's better to do the entire 2 hours continuously, if possible).

    That's it. Happy ThemeCPing :))

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