Cristofor's blog

By Cristofor, history, 14 months ago, In English

Hello, CodeForces!

I am Cristofor Zaharescu. I am a teacher, in the Liceul Tehnologic Alunis. I was rather intrigued about the fact that not so many newbies get to examinate certain problems rounds, which in my eyes if quite a foolish thing for the future of the CodeForces community. I feel like normalizing Newbies test in rounds will succeed in the following things:

  • Boosting self confidence. Knowing you are important, and the fact that you can contribute in rounds, is something that can really upper your mettle in resolving wordproblems, making it easier to improve and having a higher chance to perform fairly well in future contests, as well as lowering the likelihood of giving up on programming competitively.
  • Experience. The fact that people get to test problems early on is quite meaningful, due to the fact that, when the Newbies will improve, go up a couple of colours, and need to test harder problems, the feedback they will give is going to be more appropriate, so contests turn out to be better.
  • Getting to know other people. Testing a round can be an "interactive" process, as there will not only be one overall tester. People can make new friends, work-buddies, and being aware of the fact that you are not alone in such a big subject helps maintain a healthy future. Also, working with other people in ICPC-style contests is enjoyable.
  • Difficulty of the first problem. I myself have seen numerous problems that, theoretically, are quite easy for beginers, yet that require some strategies one wouldn't know at that level. A study has shown that having an easier problem in a genuinely hard exam gets student to obtain higher grades rather than a less challenging exam where none of the problems are exactly easy. This happens due to the fact that, no matter how easy the problem is, solving a problem uppens your confidence and motivation during the assessment. For a better understanding, let me give you an example:

Let's say we have a test where there are 3 problems: A, B and C. The average student is much more likely to score a higher amount of points if the ratings are (800 — 1200 — 1600), rather than (1000 — 1100 — 1300).

Now, an obvious inquiry you might have is "Well, what if they copy all of the problems and participate on an alternativ account?". First of all, the beginner tester should only have access to the first one or two problems, which he could already solve in a relatively small amount of time, it would not make much of a difference. The first problems can be found on Telegram copying servers or YouTube anyways, so if a person has delusive intentions, they could achieve them anyways.

To shortly conclude all I have stated, this change in the community, from where I am standing, will do greater good than bad.

Thank you for taking your time to read my oppinion,

Happy coding!

Cristofor

P.S.: If I made any spelling/grammar mistakes, or repeated myself to many times, please tell me. My english is something I am willing to work on in the near future.

  • Vote: I like it
  • +40
  • Vote: I do not like it

»
14 months ago, # |
  Vote: I like it +19 Vote: I do not like it

I have never been a tester but my friends did and from what I saw , testing requires some experience : What I mean by that is user should be able to give constructive feedback on the problem. This might seems easy at first but to give good feedback on a problem you should have solved lots of similar problems in the past and know bunch of things to compare it with.This is what low-rated coders lack , most of the time their opinions about the problems are biased towards some extreme or it feels random.

And the other thing is , they can only test so much problems : in the case of grays , most of the time they would only be able to solve first problem and sometimes the second. This is very inefficient from the problem-setters side since it is generally bad to have too much testers.

To conclude : I think the current system for choosing tester works fine since it is curated and polished after years of experience

  • »
    »
    14 months ago, # ^ |
      Vote: I like it +10 Vote: I do not like it

    feedback on the first problem doesnt have to be so specific it can be like too hard or too easy

»
14 months ago, # |
  Vote: I like it +53 Vote: I do not like it

No, newbies shouldn't be allowed to test. NEVER!

»
14 months ago, # |
Rev. 2   Vote: I like it +11 Vote: I do not like it

It's not about not letting newbies test, its more about trust. If I have a friend from school who is newbie and I trust a lot, then hell yea I'll let them test.

»
14 months ago, # |
  Vote: I like it +11 Vote: I do not like it

Trust issue is the main thing which somehow depends on your color , for example it's obvious to trust a purple/yellow for a div-3 testing