I have been struggling to reach Candidate Master for a while, and in today's contest, this happened:
Feeling very sad. Hoping to reach CM in the next round...
Jokes aside, thanks to all the amazing problem-setters that make problems for this platform. Also, thanks to all my fellow contestants, we push each other to do better in every contest : )
If you feel stuck at a certain rating range, remember that with enough practice (and the right kind of practice) you CAN move forward!
Spoiler
my deepest sympathy goes out to you at this difficult time
No degree Buff is real ᓚᘏᗢ Congrats :) well deserved !!!
This is one of the moments of all time.
Orz
My condolences for your loss
Be strong, such hard times will pass.
This Is So Sad Alexa Play Despacito
Well deserved win.
DreadArceus ORZ.
EDIT : https://pasteboard.co/hC65EH2tHbeg.jpg
here is the image link
tried but failed to attach the image
<(￣︶￣)↗
I actually did the same 3 years go, but one day after the ending of contest it was made unrated :/
Congrats anyway, enjoy master while you can!
Nobody cares about international master, it is the same color :)
I wish if I could be sad like you
Your rating graph motivated me.
Mad respect for getting master with
if (rng() % 100000 == 0) assert(false);I don't know. Can you please tell me what this snippet of code mean?
The program will raise a runtime error if
rng()returns a 100000 multipleThe worse thing would be if you'll drop back to expert :)
I wish you best of luck on making candidate master in the next contest!
Suffering from Success xD
Congrats!
I am so happy seeing this blog tho, good luck in your next contests & keep it up, red is waiting for you <3
I am feeling very sad too, jumping constantly between expert and cm in the recent 8 contests:(
Congrats!
Gratz man
Can you please suggest me the right kind of practice (you mentioned) for moving forward?
I did not mean to say that there is one right kind of practice for everyone. You must figure out the method(s) that work for you by trying out whatever seems interesting.
I can describe my problem-solving ideology over the last year for you. Try picking anything you like and adjusting it to yourself.
First of all, tags off, too many spoilers about problems in there for me.
I adore randomized algorithms, so I decided to follow the logic that if I do a certain amount of random problems of some rating, I will eventually be confident with solving problems of that rating.
I did 50 1900s, then 69 2000s, then 50 2100s, and then finally 50 2200s. While doing these, I did not look at the editorial, even if a single problem took days (with 3-4 exceptions).
Around my most recent return to contests, I did random problems from the rating range 1800-2200 (first choosing the rating with equal chances and then the problem), but what I had learned from my earlier randomized practice was that older problems could be much easier, so I included another parameter, the minimum contest ID (at first I kept it as 1000 but later I changed it to 1500).
Now that I had confidence in my ability to solve these problems, I wanted to target solving them fast, so I set a time limit of one hour. If I failed a problem within that hour, I saw the editorial. Also, I did not know the rating of the problem while solving it (so it mimics the moment of attempting a D/E in a div2 contest).
Be sure to check out how other people practice as well.
Hope this helps!
Thanks man for you suggestion. Can you tell me one last thing that,With this newbie tag of mine,Should I focus on just implementation based problems or DSA based problems, for now?
I would say do whatever interests you more, but if your target is to increase your CF rating, you do not need to practice any DSA for now. When you reach that point, you will start to notice it.
Thanks Again bro.Wish you good luck for your future.
I did 50 1900s, then 69 2000s, then 50 2100s, and then finally 50 2200s. While doing these, I did not look at the editorial, even if a single problem took days (with 3-4 exceptions).Thanks for the reply. My questions are — 1.How during this routine, you managed to know, if you needed to learn something/ a new concept to solve the problem?
Thanks a lot.
I enjoy DSA, so I was familiar with most "concepts" (like Segment Trees, SCC, LCA, and even maximum flows at a black-box level) before starting with the 1900s. However, there were times when I did not know the concept involved (the few exceptions I mentioned). In such cases, I took help from my friend shiviDON. He would look at the solution and let me know some keyword(s) to proceed.
I selected the problems randomly, using a discord bot and, more recently, my website (both using the CF API).
Actually, your solution to the problem E uses a bit wrong sqrt decomposition, because of the following case: Consider bamboo consisting of $$$2000$$$ nodes. To the node number $$$2000$$$ we'll pin another $$$1000$$$ bamboos of length $$$98$$$. All queries are different and from the last layer. In this case solution stores every pair of visited nodes in the map, which is $$$q * 98$$$ = ~$$$10^7$$$. And $$$10^7$$$ map operations taking just too long.
So if the testcases were strong enough, you would probably have reached CM.
Yeah, I got hacked a couple of hours ago. Such a sad missed chance to finally reach Candidate Master : (
Also, Thanks for explaining the case to me!
Congratulations for your loss.
So sad