ANY SUGGESTION FOR IMPROVEMENT IS GREATLY APPRECIATED!
So far I've spent 144 days and solved 281 problems in the range 800-1200 ranges.
Couple of friends for healthy competition helps a lot.
Looking solutions of Grandmasters helps increase knowledge base faster.
CP handbook is amazing for beginner.
I spent too much time on a problem sometimes from 4 hours to 2 days(max), but its worth it in the end when you figure out the problem on your own.
Consistency helps a lot, I made a habit of solving at least 2 problems a day(I know I should do more, I'm moving towards 6 problems everyday), I've definitely seen improvement in matter of logic and speed.
Watching streams of better competitive programmers helps a lot as well.
Progressive overload helps as well, I started solving 50 problems from each segment 800-900-1000-1100-1200, currently solving 8th problem of 1200.
When stuck on a problem time away screen and on a notebook speeds up a process of problem solving.
So far I've enjoyed this process a lot and its really fascinating to see during competition people solve the whole problem-set within 30 minutes or less and I barely manage to solve 1-3 problems in div-2, scope of improvement is massive.
Lack of sleep does not help at all. Tried pulling an all nighter once and could not solve it, and the next day with full sleep solved in 10 min the next day.
Still learning many more concepts like DP, graphs, trees, bit manipulation, algos and so on....
I suggest to solve more 1200/1200+ rated problems, because normally 3rd problems in div2 rounds are rated 1200 or higher(sometimes 2nd problems as well), you solved around 8 1200 rated and no higher, but solved like 100+ 800 rated which means that you can now easily solve the 1st problems of contest, so I suggest to start solving B/C problems from div 2, I know that you did, but you need to solve more like you did for 800 rated problems.
Not sure if I am eligible to suggest you something, but I wouldn't recommend you learning trees and graphs at this stage. Don't be greedy to get everything right now, I have made many mistakes in my CP journey (which I'm grateful for) and it was in that list.
I would like to add to not get stuck up about rating in problems. I dont think doing 50 problems of each rating is productive at all, specially the lower ones since you will be doing lots of them as time goes on in contests.
As proof of that, in your last contest B was 1100 and because of that more than 3/4 of the problems you practiced were theoretically easier than it. Typically the problems you solve in contest are much lower rated than the ones you can solve in practice, so its clear you will probably only solve relatively easy problems in contests since youre limiting yourself so much.
Id suggest upsolving your contests. Take the next problem or the next few problems in your past contests and see how to solve them. It's the perfect practice, since they are exactly the type of problems you need to get better at to improve.
That said, good luck on your journey.
watching anime makes your perf go up
Can somebody please suggest to me some good resources to learn bit manipulation(bitmasks etc. )... I always struggle with problems involving the use of any bitwise operator or a problem requiring the use of bitmasks etc... would really appreciate the help...
In my opinion bit manipulation is one of the topics where there is only practice that improves you because there is basically no theory as long as you know what each bitwise operator does. I have gained my skill (according to my overall level of course) in bitwise operations just by practicing and so far that's the only thing I plan to do while improving this field.
You can probably find some useful tricks out there on CF catalog for example, but besides that I personally can't suggest much.
Very insightful!