Stuck_On_Gray's blog

How do you control yourself during contests?
By Stuck_On_Gray, history, 9 months ago, In English

Each contest I participate , When I make a wrong submition I become so stressful and I can't think anymore , start making false submisions changing silly thing in code

And you can notice that I am stuck on the same level for long time ( from 1140 -> 1198 ) any suggestions?

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9 months ago, # |
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Whenever you're running out of time and can't debug proved problem go for a walk because clearly under stress conditions you would not solve problem, yes you can try to show opposite to show that you are truly GM/LGM but as practice shows (by direct pushing you can solve only very restricted class of problems, that's why market economics mostly outperforms plan economics, but even market economics starts from a plan economics.. so most things in Universe are created by indirect processes, Eratosphene created his sieve by sieve, Euler created graph theory by moving through the Keninsberg, Newtone made gravity theory by interaction with an apple, etc, so the thing is about finding out truly your own ideas as rng_58 told).. If you have no ideas how to solve problems, "practice, practice and once again practice" because nothing better was not invented..

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9 months ago, # |
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Maybe lie down, close your eyes till you feel better.

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9 months ago, # |
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You're stuck because you aren't training enough, like you only solved 7 1000-rated problems (install cp analysis extension).

As for stressing in contest, just ignore it, you'll be cool with it the more you participate and train.

Spoiler
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    9 months ago, # ^ |
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    honestly I'm in the 12th grade and my exams in less than 2 months so I'm preparing for it , I'm practicing when I feel boring from studying for exam

    for the number of problems , This is my second account the first one I lost it , In my first account I solved a lot of 800~1100 rated problems and I am now practicing higher rate ....

    Any suggestions ?

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9 months ago, # |
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Upsolve more problems.

Think that if you drop rating in this contest your chances of getting rating next round will go up.

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9 months ago, # |
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practice more and more, do virtual contests and don't give too much attention for your rating

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    9 months ago, # ^ |
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    sir I needed a bomb

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    9 months ago, # ^ |
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    Do you think virtual contest better than solving problems from cf problem set?

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      9 months ago, # ^ |
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      In my opinion, its harder to learn from doing a virtual contest/problem set than doing themed problems on your level of difficulty. You can think of problem sets as a test for more general knowledge.

      But anyways, reading the editorial of a problem you can't solve and understanding the solution improves you anyway. I recommend implementing the solution yourself after the editorial.

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      9 months ago, # ^ |
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      Of course not if you want to practice at a specific difficulty levels of problems

      But virtual contests is better if you want to train in the contest atmosphere and control your stress

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9 months ago, # |
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Maybe writing very simple test-cases and solving them can help find the solution. Or try a completely different approach.

And also, you can try to answer your question yourself. I mean, after you struggle with the problem, see the editorial and ask yourself: "What i could've done to get to the same thought process?" or smth like that

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9 months ago, # |
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The answer to all questions

ULTIMATE ANSWER
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9 months ago, # |
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I've had sometimes feelings like this, but after a few months of contests I got so used to seeing "Wrong answer on test 2" that I became quite emotionally resistant to it. You can also try doing virtual contests to increase your resistance.

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9 months ago, # |
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happened with me yesterday. but thanksfully, I was able to solve c in the blink of an eye. the only advice I can give is practice and stay calm.

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9 months ago, # |
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I think when you get a wrong answer you should try to take test cases and try to dry run your code on those test cases and make sure your code is doing what you intended it to do. Also, you should not get frustrated by it because if your rating drops below your potential you will eventually get it back in future contests.

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    9 months ago, # ^ |
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    Are u the same guy who got AIR 1 in inmo?

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9 months ago, # |
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I believe the rating system is put in such a way that the effect of some bad contests can easily be overcome (and vice versa... but you want to attain a stably well performance). Rating is very sensitive to current performance. So if you perform bad (in your context say 800 level performance) in 10 contests. You don't need 10 contests to wash off that effect. You require much less!

Once you start performing stably well, effect of past contests (whether good or bad) decreases, Hence, I make this psychological note that decrease in rating is temporary and calm myself down. Maybe you too can.

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9 months ago, # |
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Im too focused on figuring out what i did wrong to be stressed, just come from experience.

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9 months ago, # |
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These worked for me: Try to enjoy the problem you try to solve (The more you enjoy what you do the more your brain tries to do its best D:).

Also upsolve the contests from A to the problem that you try to get stable on it.

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9 months ago, # |
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I could only remind myself to stay calm and not bail out.

Usually, I failed the former (if you could see me in either a Codeforces round or an ICPC contest with something ranging from -4 to -10, that would certainly be me going mad).

Yet the latter, I actually pulled some nice last-minute-ACs. Maybe you could actually try to have that feeling. The mentality here is to always remember that nothing is over, that you would have to try until the timer reach zero.

Last contest was an example of this. If I actually bailed out after 2 hours, I would certainly embrace a -200 instead of just a -83 (though I clearly don't like the latter, anything salvageable is good).

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9 months ago, # |
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edge

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    9 months ago, # ^ |
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    It is my humble opinion that Jelqing works much better, and achieves the job much faster. Mewing is also a good alternative. Edging is for vanilla copium incels with no taste in life.

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