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devcode24's blog

How to improve myself? Feeling stuck in Gray
By devcode24, history, 2 weeks ago, In English

Can someone help me by giving me feedback on how to improve my rating? I am feeling stuck, I am unable to improve myslef, which results in making me stuck in Grey. This is also making me a bit frustrated.

What I do for practice -> I am solving this Sheet currently. I am currently practicing 1000-110 rated problems. I have solved the 800-900 rated problems from this. What I do while solving a problem is --> I first try to implement the intuition that first comes up, then I am either able to implement it or while implementing I realize my intuition is not correct, and after this, I just get stuck on one intuition, I am unable to think of any other intuition, I still try to come with an intuition which is very similar to I previously thought of. if I am unable to solve a problem after thinking for 30-60 mins, I look at the solution.

There are many times, when I am unable to think of any intuition and then I right away look at the solution within 20-30 mins

Like in the last Contest 969, I was unable to solve any problem, I started solving A and got frustrated when I thought my logic of finding coprime triplet, was giving WA. Then after feeling disappointed, I was unable to solve B, even though solving B required just a bit of observation

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2 weeks ago, # |
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do more 1000-1300 problems. And once you solved try to see the editorial to see how to solve it in a different way. If u were unable to solve one see editorial or watch a video tutorial and try to understand the concept by yourself rather than jump into the next problem. also upsolve after a contest.

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2 weeks ago, # |
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Learn ftt and other simple algorithms. That way you can become Green like me

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    2 weeks ago, # ^ |
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    What's FTT?

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    2 weeks ago, # ^ |
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    FFT ain't no necessary to reach pupil imo.

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    13 days ago, # ^ |
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    this is overpowered, you can learn fft for some problems, but isn't a standar, is better a simple binary search and some dfs, and try improve a lot the implementation and logic thinking (personal opinion)

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2 weeks ago, # |
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I saw your graph, and saw that you just started CP in July. Don't stress too much about becoming green or anything as you are still new at it. Try solving the questions from 1000 to 1200 on the TLE sheet, and instead of just looking straight up at the solutions. Try to understand the reasoning behind the solution. That will help you improve for sure.

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    2 weeks ago, # ^ |
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    What to do in situations where I am unable to think of an intuition? What I do in these cases is just look at the editorial for hints or ask gpt for some hints on solving the problem.

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      2 weeks ago, # ^ |
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      That's ok, you need some way of building a new ways of thinking, you could just think about the problem but it will take time to figure it out sometimes, so what I would suggest if you don't have any idea look the editorial/hints and don't just copy the solution understand it and think of some improvements or other way of implementing.

      And then you will encounter some new ways of thinking or new algorithm, and when that happens use google to understand it better.

      And also don't just do the problem once, do it several times throughout a week so it gets stuck in you mind, not the problem itself but the idea of how to solve it, because you will see that you can implement it in some other problems. You can also use some extension like KEEP PROBLEM to write notes about the problem, it really helps sometimes.

      And the main reason why are you still a newbie is that you should solve more 1200+ problems. It is simple just look at the profiles of other people nobody is 200+ rating above there level and solving only 1000s or -200 rating problems.

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        2 weeks ago, # ^ |
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        Alright, the recommendation to solve a problem several times a week to get the idea of solving the problem stuck in my mind is something I used to do for school and college examinations, definitely will try it in cp as well

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2 weeks ago, # |
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Cute Dog, bhai ye tera kutta hai ?

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2 weeks ago, # |
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solve problems by urself , dont ask to much, solve more n more problems, everyones neuron development is not same, maybe be it can take twice much effort than others, Sometimes u know how to solve the problems but u lack confidence in building solution beacuse u never tried, note how u model problems little observations where u started thinking from,like what concept it could be.

Note most hard problems are lengthy so make urself comfortable for writing long codes, one start can be is to find minimal sufficent observations to begin with solving hard problems

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    2 weeks ago, # ^ |
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    Its all about what comes in your when u read something, start with constrainsts, test cases always think what is coming to ur mind on reading problems, if nothing come in ur head then problem is either simple problem with guesses and checks and derivation, maths, constructive one all which is useless u cant do anything about them u may get them sometimes or it could be a new idea that can be used in other problems

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2 weeks ago, # |
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Two things-

  1. When you solved/saw a tutorial for a question, try to retrospect and think why the solution was the way it was. Understand what chain of reasoning could have led someone to find it so you can do the same.

  2. Just don't give a fuck about your rating. I know it isn't easy. Especially when you feel that it's a reflection of your progress/performance. Maybe set your goal to dedicate 1 hr each day to cf, and be satisfied if you do it.

Try not to put so much pressure on yourself for rating and only focus on the problems, one at a time. It's a good enough feeling when you see your algorithm finding the correct solution for every case the problem-setter could think of.

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    2 weeks ago, # ^ |
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    Thank you so much brother, needed that !

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    2 weeks ago, # ^ |
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    Got it! Also one more thing, many times the editorials are complex to understand, so is this normal, like me not being able to understand editorials right now is normal? will I be able to understand the editorials as time goes by?

    Also while solving problems, if the intuition that came up first does not work, then what is your thought process after that?

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      13 days ago, # ^ |
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      Yeah, it's normal not to understand complex editorials. Though in most cases, you would probably get them by giving them some time, unless they use a concept you do not know about.

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2 weeks ago, # |
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praktice 1200-1300 30+ question

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2 weeks ago, # |
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I am stuck in gray like you, but i think you need to improve more about your coding skill. I have learned code for 3 year from when i 9 to 12 years old(right now) but i still stuck in gray. I think i really bad at math so i am a little dump when coding. Sorry for bad english because i am a vietnamese

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    2 weeks ago, # ^ |
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    demnn! a 12 year old! Well yeah I am trying to improve my coding skill by doing CF

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2 weeks ago, # |
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For the first problem try to think some short approach that will do the task , generally first problem is of 800-900 rating which require very little brinstorming

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    2 weeks ago, # ^ |
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    yes I try to solve it with this type of mindset, and mostly I am able to solve 1st problem, until and unless the problem A is very heavy on math, like contest 969.

    at least now I know that I have to think like that ( like we had to think for solving Problem2007A ) to solve a problem.

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      2 weeks ago, # ^ |
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      last round A was also not really math heavy there was observation yeah it took me alot of time too to find it out as I was also thinking of math but that observation was key to solve that problem.

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        2 weeks ago, # ^ |
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        let me rephrase, it was not math-heavy, but it required the ultimate level of patience and observation

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12 days ago, # |
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me too stuck in Gray. It's disappointing :(

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12 days ago, # |
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Try to join every contest you can because, if you noticed, some 800 ratings probably come from Div 2. Also, try working on math problems because (again) if you notice, the ABC of Div 2 is all math usually. I solve from a spread sheet of good problems. Before the spread sheet, I only used to solve 800-900 but now I'm solving 900 — 1400. Here is the spread sheet link.

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