Why sometimes the later problem is easier than an earlier one?

Revision en2, by iamujj15, 2022-12-17 21:13:40

I was searching for this question, but didn't find it anywhere. I was wondering that some contests with a minor hardness deflection in like Problem C & D is justifiable (where D is easier than C), but some contests literally have a big difference of hardness, yet they're assigned like that in a contest.

Some ex. of such Contests are :

Educational Codeforces Round 140

Codeforces Round 830

Codeforces Round 823

Codeforces Round 805

Codeforces Round 770

etc.

I was going through this blog to know, how ratings are assigned for problems in Codeforces, and broadly it's quite related to how many submission a problem is having with participants of various ratings.

Although, such contests, as mentioned above, are really very few if we see overall contests, yet out of curiosity I was thinking, don't they affect the rating of a problem actually? Because, if let's say C is harder than D, then a lot of people will spend more time on C & probability of solving D will decrease because of that, which will lead to an increased rating assignment to it, when it might not be even worth the rating.

So, my question is, is there an explicit check for such scenarios to rectify the actual rating accordingly and, why do problem setters decides to assign problem in such sequence, is it coincidental or intentional? Because with minor difference, it's understandable, but I don't think it's coincidental, when that difference is quite considerable.

Tags rating, problem setter

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en2 English iamujj15 2022-12-17 21:13:40 6 Tiny change: 't I don't it's coin' -> 't I don't think it's coin'
en1 English iamujj15 2022-12-17 10:21:31 1768 Initial revision (published)