Hello, I am Gustavo from Brazil.
I would like some tips to help me improve. Currently, I can solve problems rated around 800 in Div. 4. I can solve problems A, B, and C in Div. 4 contests, but no more than that. In Div. 3, I can sometimes solve problem A, but I don’t know what to study to improve.
I’m in my first year of Computer Science and about to start my second semester. So far, I’ve only had one introductory algorithms course at university. I’ve learned about stacks, queues, sets, multisets, vectors, pairs, and algorithms like sort, upper_bound, and lower_bound. At the beginning of this year, I’ll also learn about trees.
I’ve attached an image of my solved problems. Most of them are rated 800, and I’ve solved 86 of them so far.
What should I do to get better? Any advice is welcome!
Auto comment: topic has been updated by GustavoLopesOliveira (previous revision, new revision, compare).
My thoughts say that the issue is probably your problem-solving skills (no offense). 800 rated problems are the one's that you don't have to realise anything at all usually, but for problems with a bigger rating you often have to think and realise something which will make the problem solvable.
How to improve those skills? The thing with math, computer science, physics and similar is that you just have to solve a lot of problems to become better at them. I mean, you also have to know some theory but these skills are a much bigger part here. My advice is that you should not keep doing 800 rated problems because what's the point if you are already good at them? You should solve harder problems which you are not sure you can solve so you can spend time actually thinking. The more you think about this stuff, the better you will become. When those problems which are a bit harder than 800 become easy, you just repeat the process.
I hope my advice was helpful. I did not want to say anything offensive, so I'm sorry if I did, and good luck in your future!
It didn’t offend me, thanks for the tips! So, should I do Div. 3 and Div. 2 contests and practice problems with a rating of 900? And then, when I feel comfortable, move on to 1000 rating problems, and keep going like that?
I strongly suggest you use CP4 books and kattis to start your journey, rather than codeforces. The books not only teach you relevant topics for competitive programming it also has sections with questions. Each section has 2/3 starred questions (which is like most relevant questions for that topic). I have done all starred questions from chapter 1 to 7 (and like half in chapter 8 when I got tired of doing the book and migrated to codeforces. Mind you the book has 9 chapters). I think the book is a great source to learn the fundamentals. Also, codeforces questions are usually more creative, so I think it is hard to progress by just doing them, as at times you won't know whether you lack skill or just need some observations to solve a problem. This is what have worked for me.
Btw I am not sponsored by them
These books?
I can't see the image LOL. Anyway, it's the ones available here: https://cpbook.net
i dont know how put image here , and my english is bad.
i read these first or competitive programming handbook ?
You can go straight to CP4. I didn't know about this competitive programming handbook
thanks, but after what i do ? Just contest Div.1 Div.2 ?
keep doing all the contests you can while you are practicing with the book; you should notice a huge improvement by the time you finish book 1
I would suggest trying to do harder problem for 30~60 minutes (even harder question may require longer time),
if you really can't do it, then read the editorial (or tutorial/answer).