Kaunta's blog

By Kaunta, history, 3 years ago, In English

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tl;dr — Send the problem (0-1400 rated, CF Only) link and your thought process to the email here. (The more detailed thought process the better and more likely to get a response.)

Hey everyone! My name is Ivy [Kaunta], and I'm here today to offer my services. Wait that's a bit sus.

My name is Ivy, and welcome to my coaching. No, no, no... too cheesy.

Ok, ok. Hi, my name is Ivy, and this is coaching. Fine, it's definitely not getting any better than that. I'm sure many of you have no idea who I am, so let's run through some of my qualifications before getting into the specific details of how the coaching will work.

Qualifications

I'm rated 2002 on CF (you may know me from the Year to 2000 Challenge), USACO Gold, 255 on AC, friend and protégé of galen_colin <3, and I have a very scuffed profile picture.

But with that out of the way, let's talk about how coaching will work.

What This Isn't

Before we talk about what this is, let's talk about what this isn't.

DS/Algo

This isn't a DS/Algo course.

There are hundreds of great sources for you to learn algorithms and theory whether that's cp-algorithms, Codeforces Edu, or Colin Galen's YT. I may explain why algorithms or approaches make sense in situations, but it'd be up to you to learn the specifics.

Problem Curation

While this seems to be what most CP coaches focus on, this isn't problem curation. While I have problems I find interesting, I by no means have the wisdom to select didactic problems for individuals for optimal improvement and it doesn't seem to be the most efficient way to teach groups.

So What is This?

Coming in at the exclusive price of $0, my idea of coaching is a bit divergent from what you might expect. I'm here to help you out with navigating the ins and outs of problem solving. We're going to be taking deep dives into how to break down problems, examinations of mental models, and thought processes to help translate your practice into rating points. Whether or not you were able to solve the problem, it's important (esp. if you couldn't solve it) to examine how and why you didn't consider different ideas or reached the conclusions you did. Being able to do this by yourself is a critical skill for improving, and I'm hoping to help introduce more people to integrating metacognition into their practice; in other words, thinking about your thinking after you think about problems that require thinking. Simple.

For now, I'll be accepting problems from [0-1400] rating on CF while I get my skills up to par and work on my writing/teaching skills.

If this sounds interesting, just send on over the problem link and your thoughts(video, written thoughts, picture, etc.) to the email here. (Hint: The more detailed your thoughts, the more compelled I'll be to review your submission wink wink)

This also isn't completely a one-on-one coaching session, as I will be publishing these to the interwebs. If you have some fun alias or just want to send your username, feel free to do so in the email. Or I'll just come up with some devious nicknames myself c:

Schedule

As for a schedule, I'm going to be trying to review 1 person's submissions each week on Saturday, and posts will come out when I feel they are polished enough.

Outro

Just a disclaimer: I am not perfect. I'm rusty; I'm a CM; I make mistakes. I will do my best to ensure I offer a comprehensive coverage of problems and approaches, but I'm sure there will always be things I miss. If you ever find mistakes or holes, you can always send an email (preferred) or a CodeForces message, and I'll add revisions in with credit. If you have any other questions, feel free to leave them down below in the comments.

Now seriously, why are you still reading? Click on off and send your problems over to me!

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By Kaunta, history, 3 years ago, In English

New laptop who's this? New month means new post, so here are the totally not worth the wait responses to the AMA I put out a month ago.

I've got exciting ideas that I can't wait to share now that I have 2 months to procrastinate on college apps, but until then, enjoy these long overdue answers!

https://kauntaofficial.github.io/fermented-ama-answers

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By Kaunta, history, 4 years ago, In English

TL;DR — Thanks for your support on this crazy, year long journey, and I'll be answering the top comments below in my next post. (My phone number is off limits, sorry ladies)

Sappy, sentimental post where I give thanks to some people that really deserve it and write more than a sentence here!

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By Kaunta, history, 4 years ago, In English

That's right, your favorite monthly, totally not monthly, series about semi-challenging problems is back. I've tried to explain my thought process more in depth so that even if you're completely lost trying the problems yourself, you can get an understanding of how to tackle similar problems in the future (assuming you actually use my editorials, imagine that). Hope you enjoy!

https://kauntaofficial.github.io/the-kaunta-collection-003

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By Kaunta, history, 4 years ago, In English

Do you ever struggle to understand an editorial and wish you had a friend on beck and call to help you? Want to pretend like you understand high level topics like Heavy Light Decomposition and Prefix Sums without actually practicing? Well, today I've got the solution for you: How To Make Grandmaster Friends (2020 Edition)!

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By Kaunta, history, 4 years ago, In English

Hey everyone! This week I'm sharing my system on how I develop intuition through targeted practice. Hope you enjoy :D

https://kauntaofficial.github.io/developing-intuition

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By Kaunta, history, 4 years ago, In English

That's right, that one guy with a rating-centric challenge is back... to talk about why rating is kind of trash.

Today I discuss about why rating isn't a good metric for improvement (ironic, I know) and 2 better metrics to quantify your growth.

https://kauntaofficial.github.io/2020/06/13/the-metrics-of-success.html

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By Kaunta, history, 4 years ago, In English

I go over the 3-step process I've adopted on how to better think about problems and why you should take notes on problems. Hope you enjoy!

https://kauntaofficial.github.io/2020/05/17/the-art-of-thinking.html

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By Kaunta, history, 4 years ago, In English

It's the first of the month, and you know what that means... new Kaunta Collection! I've been pretty busy this month with college finals but still managed to sneak in some time to practice and find good problems. Hope you guys enjoy these problems as much I did and find my editorials helpful.

https://kauntaofficial.github.io/2020/05/01/the-kaunta-collection-002.html

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By Kaunta, history, 4 years ago, In English

We're all told that the secret to increasing your rating is just practice, but sometimes it isn't enough. You practice and practice, yet your name doesn't undergo the magical color metamorphosis you were promised. This week I cover the common mental roadblocks that prevent people from performing well in contests and what I did to conquer them.

https://kauntaofficial.github.io/2020/04/12/the-journey-continues.html

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By Kaunta, history, 4 years ago, In English

Happy April Fools everyone! Seeing as today is the best day of the year for jokes and pranks, I thought it'd be nice to balance out the tomfoolery with some a compilation of some more serious problems. The Kaunta Collection is a new monthly series I'm starting where I compile 3-5 of my favorite problems over the past month and share them with the community. Time to try my hand at today's April Fool's problems, so enjoy the post and see you this Sunday for the next post!

https://kauntaofficial.github.io/blog/2020/04/01/the-kaunta-collection-001

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By Kaunta, history, 4 years ago, In English

This week on the ZLE show, we're (and by we I mean me) going to be talk about tricks to improve your performance in contest and how I managed to connect swimming to competitive programming.

https://kauntaofficial.github.io/blog/2020/03/25/the-merits-of-being-alone

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By Kaunta, history, 4 years ago, In English

Wait whaaa... it's been two months without a post? Well, this week on the Road to 2000 I talk about why I've been gone for so long and what's coming in the future for the blog.

https://kauntaofficial.github.io/blog/2020/03/08/exeunt-motivation

Seriously though, I apologize for no updates for such a long time, and I'll be doing my best to make sure that this was a one time thing.

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By Kaunta, 4 years ago, In English

Merry Christmas everyone! Although you can temporarily change your name color to the rating you want to achieve until January 10th, this practice spreadsheet could help you have that color during the rest of the year and comes with a money back guarantee. Hope the spreadsheet proves useful and have a great rest of the year!

https://kauntaofficial.github.io/blog/2019/12/26/magic-spreadsheet

Fake LGM Ivy

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By Kaunta, 4 years ago, In English

This is the 100% true story of how I was converted from a devout atheist to a MathForces disciple and why you should too. Jokes aside, this week's post is about what I've learned from doing math problems for the past two weeks. Hope you guys enjoy :D

https://kauntaofficial.github.io/blog/2019/12/22/the-power-of-mathforces

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By Kaunta, 4 years ago, In English

I almost postponed writing this until next week. Then I realized I could postpone upsolving by writing the post so here I am. This week's topics are the limitations of reflection and how your mindset affects performance in contests. I've tried to write it in a more casual style and all feedback about the style and blog in general are welcome. Hope you enjoy!

https://kauntaofficial.github.io/perspective

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By Kaunta, 4 years ago, In English

Guess who's back, back again! Sorry for the delay in blog posts, as I've been a bit under the weather the past week. This week I wrote about some things you can do to improve your performance in contests and announced something new :D Hope you guys enjoy and have a wonderful day/night.

https://kauntaofficial.github.io/contest-prep

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By Kaunta, 4 years ago, In English

Hey everyone! My name is Ivy, and I'm doing a challenge to hit 2000 on CodeForces after a year of training. Here's some advice from some of the top competitors on how to tackle this challenge, a summary of the first month of training, and the first blog post of hopefully many.

https://kauntaofficial.github.io/the-start

Hope you enjoy it and have a nice day/night :D

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