TheLazyBoy's blog

By TheLazyBoy, history, 20 months ago, In English

Hi , What should I do when I am unable to understand the solution of a problem from editorial?

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20 months ago, # |
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Try looking at other people's solutions or reading through comments on the editorial. There are often neat observations or simpler explanations offered by people in the comments.

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    20 months ago, # ^ |
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    I do this, but its not always helpful

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      20 months ago, # ^ |
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      In that case, try searching up keywords from the intended solution one at a time and learning them. However sometimes you might just want to leave the editorial and come back to it when you're more experienced.

      Hope this helps!

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20 months ago, # |
  Vote: I like it +23 Vote: I do not like it

Some editorials aren't great and some presume knowledge that you may not have — it happens. If you really tried hard and can't figure it out, you should probably ask for help from someone more experienced. If you don't have more experienced friends that you can ask in real life, consider asking the Codeforces community properly. That means

  • Spend considerable amount of time actually trying to understand the solution
  • Identify which steps in the editorial confuse you so you can have concrete questions
  • Write a polite and succinct blog to ask for help, linking the problem and editorial and quoting the part of the editorial that you couldn't comprehend, as well as what your confusion is exactly.
  • Unless the problem and/or editorial is particularly hard to summarize, consider providing summaries of both for people who may not want to read all the story filler in the statement (as a bonus, summarizing your interpretation of the editorial may help in highlighting an interpretation mistake).
  • Put some effort to use correct English
  • Don't come off as entitled (definitely don't use "??" or "!!" in your blog post)

(none of this is targeted at you specifically, this is just many of the reasons why blogs for help may not receive the help needed)

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20 months ago, # |
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just copy the code and submit it

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20 months ago, # |
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Nowadays, you can see video solutions on youtube, which are often easier to grasp.