I am solving problem over 2 years. Within this time I solved almost 600 problem in CF. And also some in other OJ. Three months ago finally I reached to 1400 rating. But still I am not consistently a CF specialist. Being an expert is still so far.
Now I am getting frustrated. I don't know whether I am not that much SMART or my strategy was not right. Till my collage period I was not attentive to my study. All that time I was playing Cricket, COC and other fantasy. But after I got admitted in University, I introduced with Competitive Programming and just loved it. I left all the "time wasted things" just to focus on it.
But now some times I feel, I had the mistake as many one say Math is the key to Competitive Programming. I didn't do that much study, that much math.
Can any one tell me what should I do now?
Sometimes it is not the number of problems that you have solved, but the types of problems you have solved matters. Try using cfladders. Found it pretty helpful in moving ahead. Also, do read the idea of the tutorial solutions for special concepts like dynamic programming, graphs, etc. Hope it helps!
Try solving mostafa saad's junior sheet. May be it will help you to improve.
Can you give me the resources of the sheet?
https://docs.google.com/spreadsheets/d/1iJZWP2nS_OB3kCTjq8L6TrJJ4o-5lhxDOyTaocSYc-k/edit#gid=84654839 Hope it helps:)
You have solved problems that are mostly in the 1300 — 1500 level and around 20 questions of >1700 rating. In my opinion you should try increasing the barrier. And as for the contests there would surely be a contest where your strength would be tested more than your weaknesses. So make sure you don't lose out on your strengths even if you falter on the early questions which are somewhat in your weaker domain. Good luck!!
Doing Math helps. I've had experience with MO's and can say I am bit more comfortable with geometry, number theory and combinatorics. However there are a lot many topics that get tested in contests so being good in math doesn't necessarily imply being good in CP.
Solving more problems is not a key to be good at CP. Rather you should first read some algorithms, learn different tricks and solve problems on that topics only and at the same time you should give some contests ( not all of them , first have a strong grasp on the algorithms ) to check your current level of preparation. For various algorithms you can follow these links: 1. https://cp-algorithms.com/ 2. geekforgeeks algorithm section 3. hackerearth theory are also beneficial!!
Moreover, you should solve some medium level problems from hackerrank and see the editorial if you are unable to solve the problem. I would suggest that giving only contests is not a key, rather you should focus on reading algo and good articles! I followed this method and I am seeing improvement in my ratings.
Thank you brother. May you say how to increase the observation skill also? Is it lied down in just practice?
It just comes with practice and by solving some good problems. Also if you are giving a contest then try to upsolve atleast one question.
You're absolutely wrong. Solving interesting and challenging problems should occupy the large majority of your training time. Don't overestimate the quantity of knowledge required to perform well on div2. You may be surprised to learn that some people didn't know about segment tree before they got purple.
A lot of people actually advise to spend no more than 5-10% of your training time "directly" reading blogs/books/courses. On the other hand, if you encounter an unknown tool while reading the editorial of a problem you couldn't solve, then it can be meaningful to search for a tutorial about it.
Thanks for the guidance! I would also follow the same path suggested by you. As earlier, I waa also at the same position ( up and down in between 1300-1400 ). My way of learning brought some better results , that's why I thought that this is the correct way of learning. Thank you!!
stO hugoopm Orz
I hope your guidance will definitely help me. One more thing, How should I choose that challenging problem? If I go for the problem around 2400 difficulty or more will it be really effective for me? And only CF is enough for practice?
Something around 1700* would probably be a good target for you. My general rule is to choose the hardest problems I can except to solve by myself in a decent amount of time. It's maybe not adequate for everyone though.
I don't know many online judges, I personally practiced mainly with CF and olympiads problems (very useful for improving multi-step thinking, but it's maybe not interesting for you right now). I think that AtCoder can be interesting too.
Can you tell me how to practice olympiads problems, like which olypiad questions would be good for someone with my rating and also which judge to use for olympiads,or will it be better to not do these questions and focus on simpler things.
JOI Final Round and POI Round 2 may be interesting for you. Be sure to use OI Checklist for tracking your progress.
I feel the same as you
The Hope
Majority of hope comes from self belief and rest of it from faith. As Andy himself had said clarity about what we want (i.e becoming amazing coder, amazing problem solving, higher rating etc) is crucial to finding the way.
Just to add Uncle Iroh had said "Hope is something one can give themselves in darkest of times"
The way
We are as good as our worst therefore it makes sense to do things which makes ourselves uncomfortable (or even scared) the most (i.e solving under time control, learning new concepts, hard implementations, maths etc).
All there is left to see is how much can we push ourselves and to accept that there is not such as Good Job.
https://www.a2oj.com/Ladders.html You can try this also. If you are stuck in a problem do read the editorials as well.
brother please solve problems which are difficult for u to solve. Get out of ur comfort zone
May be you are not trying hard problems. Doing some hard problems is 100 times better than doing lot of easy easy problems.
I don't think so...because solving easier problems like between 1000-1300 clears very small concepts(i am talking about newbies,pupils and specialist like me)...and we become good at solving the problem faster.Lot of time wasting on hard problems at this stage cause frustration, decrease our self confidence and morever its not require to go into such depth as this stage.Once you gets clear with basic basic concepts you can move gradually to harder problems.
You are not fast enough in either braining ideas or implementing your solution to secure a better rank.
For me, before going into any complex topics like graph, number theory, and dp, it is better to try more easy problems and implement them fast, better AC within 5 or 10 minutes. I would suggest AtCoder Beginner Virtual Contest. Try to think about corner case and bottleneck of your code before clicking 'submit'.
Good Luck!
Try solving atcoder beginner contests ,that will quite help increasing speed of problem solving
imOmi_KingOfPalindrome I hope that your rating graph don't end up being a palindrome.
I would say don't go behind learning each and every topic and solve questions from that particular topic.it is time wasting rather try to solve more implementaion based problems.either do a2oj 1400-1600 ladders or do questions from codeforces by sorting in solved order.But don't do it topicwise that is quite demotivating and time consuming.
I think you should first learn some english ....(where is the apologize for bad english btw) , so that you can understand problem statements clearly
Hi, looking at your problem distribution from https://cfviz.netlify.app/ shows that you mostly solve A, B, and C rated problems, in that order. Since that doesn’t seem to be working, it might be a good idea to switch things up and solve and read editorials for F, E, and D rated problems. If an editorial has a topic that you’re not familiar with, the website https://cp-algorithms.com/ has been helpful for me for learning new theory, and might be helpful for you too.