theviz's blog

Asking for Genuine Help.
By theviz, history, 2 years ago, In English

Hey there. I have been doing competitive programming for about a year now but still can't see much improvements in myself. I have been following all the practice instructions (solving problems of +200 your rating, upsolving etc etc). I really want to improve at CP. I can't understand what I am doing wrong. Some Insights would be helpful. Thanks

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2 years ago, # |
← Rev. 2   Vote: I like it +13 Vote: I do not like it

Actually it is very hard(I would say impossible) to learn cp by yourself(without some sort of classes). Or maybe you are just not smart enough(but i think everyone could get to 1200-1600 with practice)

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    2 years ago, # ^ |
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    There is a theory that you can reach grandmaster given that the person hard worked enough even if he is not talented. I've seen examples of people required to solve thousands of problems to reach it. So, I think grandmaster is the last thing you can reach while being not that talented.

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      2 years ago, # ^ |
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      What do you mean by not talented? -> Struggle to focus/ Struggle in bringing attention in one place? -> Natural observation skills -> Fast learning skills

      Don't you think these things can be worked on the side?

      Personally I have little focus issue, I just get lost while solving problem, but I am working to improve my focus.

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      2 years ago, # ^ |
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      can you mention some examples?

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        2 years ago, # ^ |
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        I know someone who has said that he has/had ADHD and he said that he had weak background maths and reached GM: DeadPillow

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2 years ago, # |
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Can you actually solve problems of 200+your rating. If so you should already be fine in contest and improving. If not you might need to go back and work on easier problems first

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2 years ago, # |
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Wow! You works really hard there!

I see that on contests you do easy tasks very quickly (even quicker then me). But then you fails to solve medium problems.

Ask yourself: why I didn't solve this problem. Did I miss something? It was because lack of knowledge? What I should do to do better next time?

Also: don't try to solve problems +200 your rating. Try even some harder tasks. You are currently ~1000 ratings and I believe you can easily solve 1200 problems. So either try to solve 1400 problems (if you want to get to ranking 1200) or try to do something so you can do those problems on contests.

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2 years ago, # |
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I see you get a lot of WA's before you actually solve the task. Try solving tasks in a single shot. Tip: you can easily test your "correct" solution with your own brute-force solution (e.g. O(n!) solution on task where O(nlogn) is what seems to be correct).

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    9 months ago, # ^ |
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    But still one can only check on given test cases unless we generate our own too?

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