Wish all the best on this wonderful day! I hope you all fulfilled your wishes for 2024, but it’s ok if you didn’t as life goes on and you still have a chance in the following years. If you did, I will really like to hear what goals you achieved :)

Best Christmas present EVER :)

what are your Christmas wishes? Comment below ;)

I became specialist in round 986, a dream I had for 2 years. Here are some tips for a pupil or even a newbie to reach specialist:

• practice a lot, I noticed one thing, which is that some people usually take more time to solve a problem during contests then during daily practice. As you can see, I solved some 1500~1900 problems, but I only have 1400 rating, so perhaps upsolving will help.

• DONT CHEAT. I used to cheat 2 years ago, and it seemed that it only brought me negative delta and nothing else. I didn't improve nor increased rating. SO FOR THOSE OF YOU WHO USE GPT FOR POSITIVE DELTA, QUIT USING IT. OTHER CONTESTANTS WILL FIND OUT IF RATING ROLLBACK DOESN'T.

• Always have pen&paper beside you. It might seem like a small thing to do, but writing out what you are thinking can greatly inprove your thinking process, allowing you to think more clearly.

• This is the last tip, and what I think is the most important. Don't quit when your idea is denied. Sometimes, you think of an idea that seems to be correct at the time, but when you start to implement it or even finished implementing it, it doesn't seem right anymore. Some people might just quit this problem if it happens to them. However, having an idea means that you have a chance of solving this problem, so keep thinking, and try to relate to similar problems that you have seen.

Becoming a specialist is not as hard as you think, just quickly solve ABC in div2s or ABCDE in div3s, and your goal is accomplished!

Just curious, I like binary search best :)