tanvir_islam's blog

Seeking Help to Improve My Coding Skills: Suggestions Welcome!
By tanvir_islam, history, 15 hours ago, In English

Hi, Codeforces community!

I’ve been passionate about competitive programming and practicing regularly for over a year, but I feel there’s still a lot to learn and improve. Despite my efforts, I’ve hit a wall where my rating doesn’t seem to increase. I’d love to hear your tips, advice, and experiences to help me break through and tackle tougher challenges!

Here’s what I currently do:

  • Solve problems daily (mostly in the rating range of 1000, 1100, and 1200).
  • Analyze editorials after contests for problems I couldn’t solve.
  • Practice on problem tags where I struggle.
  • Participate in virtual contests to simulate real-time pressure.

What I’m Struggling With:

  • Breaking through to solve higher-rated ones.
  • Panicking or wasting time during contests, especially when stuck.
  • Debugging quickly and avoiding careless mistakes during implementation.
  • Staying consistent with a practice plan without feeling overwhelmed.

What I’d love your input on:

  • How to approach harder problems step by step?
  • Tips for staying calm and focused during contests.
  • Resources or strategies to improve speed in implementation and debugging.
  • Suggestions for systematic practice plans (for example, focusing on specific ratings or tags).

I’m open to all kinds of suggestions—your personal strategies, go-to resources, or even motivational stories. Let’s learn from each other and keep improving together!

Thanks a lot in advance, and happy coding!

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13 hours ago, # |
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I don't know if I am the right person to talk about it though.

But I think your practice routine is mostly fine. There are a lot of resources you can follow from internet. So there is no specific resource to follow. But you need to give more time to a single problem before seeing editorial.

There is a good blog regarding this: https://codeforces.me/blog/entry/66909

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    12 hours ago, # ^ |
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    Thank you very much for your suggestions, Brother.

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12 hours ago, # |
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You just need to learn the topics first. Find a YT tutorial / google it / search in CP algorithms and get used to with the problems , when u r comfortable with the basics then u might be able to make a constructive algo based on your knowledge to approach the problem efficiently.

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9 hours ago, # |
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you need to solve more harder problem , like your rating is x , then solve till range of x+ 400 .

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    9 hours ago, # ^ |
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    how to choose these harder problems? Is they currently rated or older or most solved problems?

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      9 hours ago, # ^ |
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      some time topic wise , some time randomly tag with rating .

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    9 hours ago, # ^ |
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    Solve from [x-200,x+200]

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9 hours ago, # |
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Hey hope you are fine . To become a pupil, you need to solve first 2 in div2 quickly and the 2nd question in div 2 is min 900 and max of 1100 rating so try to solve these questions, and don't watch editorial too early, even think for one question for hours. This would be my advice. Wish you high rating.

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9 hours ago, # |
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I can give you a little idea on one thing that you've asked (Tips for staying calm and focused during contest) : I thing that something even tourist can't achive. So, you have to learn how to solve them with during contest pressure. (This is my personal though as I'd gived tons of contest and still not know what to do about it).

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