n1k1450's blog

Guidance for solving more or equal to R1500 problem
By n1k1450, history, 18 months ago, In English

Why am I not able to solve problems rated more than or equal to 1500? Even, I know every concept which requires for solving that much rated problems? I need some guidance. I feel giving up sometimes, so I need some help who has been gone through this phase.

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18 months ago, # |
  Vote: I like it -16 Vote: I do not like it

what worked for me was spending a lot of time trying , which ever idea came I just implemented it , (probably not the best way) , if at some point I felt completely blank then I would just look at the editorial , like maybe the first few lines , also I had a friend who was in the similar rating range , so we tried the same problems , that also helped

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18 months ago, # |
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Most of the R1500 problems just require few simple observations so I would recommend just trying to find them for as much time as you can.

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18 months ago, # |
  Vote: I like it +39 Vote: I do not like it

I find 1500's too hard, so I just solve 2400's instead.

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    18 months ago, # ^ |
    ← Rev. 2   Vote: I like it +4 Vote: I do not like it

    I thought you were kidding until I checked your profile
    why do you do that ?

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      18 months ago, # ^ |
        Vote: I like it +12 Vote: I do not like it

      Because I like solving hard problems. Don't judge me just because im cyan :/

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        18 months ago, # ^ |
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        I respect that but I still think solving hard only won't guarantee you solving easy

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          18 months ago, # ^ |
            Vote: I like it +38 Vote: I do not like it
          Spoiler
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          18 months ago, # ^ |
            Vote: I like it +13 Vote: I do not like it

          I was solving 2500s when I was blue. You don't have to do what I did, but I did feel like solving very hard problems for me helped with solving easier problems. Combining this with virtuals helped with gaining consistancy.

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          18 months ago, # ^ |
          ← Rev. 2   Vote: I like it 0 Vote: I do not like it

          I think it does guarantee that though. If a person in consistent at solving 2400r problems, they will be guaranteed to be consistent with 1600r ones

          I think there is no reason to solve easier problems if you can solve harder ones without using editorials

          And solving problems while looking at editorials is a whole different thing with a questionable positive effect

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            18 months ago, # ^ |
            ← Rev. 3   Vote: I like it +5 Vote: I do not like it

            I was mistaken to say he can't solve at all
            But I'm sure someone that solved atleast 30 1600R will come up with a simpler solution in a contest rather than someone who just solves hard probs(Overthinking.. vs ApraCadabra)

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              18 months ago, # ^ |
                Vote: I like it +6 Vote: I do not like it

              Welp , as someone who has called himself OverSimplified I can assure you that most of the time I am not OverSimplified.

              basically , if I saw a problem that can be solved with easy binary search , and it also has an overkill solution which uses persistent segment tree, I assure you that my code would be persistent segment tree LOL. BTW , don't do that.

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            18 months ago, # ^ |
            ← Rev. 3   Vote: I like it 0 Vote: I do not like it

            I don't want to mislead people too much, so I'll just say that I am not not really cyan and I definitely do not have a cm alt.

            I think it does guarantee that though. If a person in consistent at solving 2400r problems, they will be guaranteed to be consistent with 1600r ones

            I think there is no reason to solve easier problems if you can solve harder ones without using editorials

            While I did exactly this, I wouldn't recommend this to anyone unless the only reason they do cp is because they love solving problems. This strategy is effective, but it will take a very long time to see results in contests. Also, most people will end up being very strong in some topics and very weak in others and this isn't desirable if someone wants to perform consistently well in contests. (I am now very strong in dp and data structures, but weak at math).

            And solving problems while looking at editorials is a whole different thing with a questionable positive effect

            I do the opposite of this, I spend weeks without looking at the editorial for problems that really pique my interest and the positives of this strategy outweigh the negatives only if one:

            • plans on doing cp for a long long time
            • devotes most of his day to solving problems.

            Otherwise, it's just going to be a waste of time and effort.

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    18 months ago, # ^ |
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    Is this advice to be followed?

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18 months ago, # |
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Work hard instead of posting stupid blogs.

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18 months ago, # |
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I had same problem, struggled to solve 1400s, then struggled with 1500s, now I am working through 1600s without too much problem. My strategy was to do 100 problems of each rating before moving onto next, it made me very fast at speedforces and I have improved from doing it, but this may not work for you. If you try hard on a rating and can only solve like 30% or less then do a slightly lower rating for like 50 problems and then try the harder rating again. You should be doing a rating where you can solve 40-60%. Also, make sure to spend adequate time on a problem, like 20-30 minutes thinking and stuff, and if you have to read editorial, try to fully understand the why and how the solution works, and how to arrive at the solution.

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    18 months ago, # ^ |
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    You should be doing a rating where you can solve 40-60%

    How can you find this rating range?

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      18 months ago, # ^ |
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      Brute force ig. You should have some idea of your rating zone based on the contests you have given and the problems you have solved so far. If not, just pick +200 of your current rating(defaults to 800 if you are unrated) and solve 6-8 random problems of that rating range. If you are able to solve them with certain level of confidence, move to the next rating set. If you are finding them too difficult, recede to a lower rating set.

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18 months ago, # |
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if solving problems were easy then everyone would be GM or LGM.

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18 months ago, # |
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how came u are almost specialist and not able to solve 1500 rated? I suppose you should be able to solve up to 1600 during practice if u have almost 1400 rating. Me personally I can solve by myself up to 1300/1400 out of contest, and sometimes also 1500 as well. I mean, without reading the editorial at all but sometimes it takes a lot, probably I would be out of time if it were a contest. Also, another thing I noticed, u only do educationals, div3 and div4. Why don't u start playing the actual game (div2) instead of easier rounds? Finally, there is a huge difference in doing older problems and newer problems.. the latter are by far harder, so just train on recent problems, it's just loosing time solving old 1500 problems

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