Hello everyone.. This is my first cf blog so please be polite to me.
I have been doing competitive programming for a year but i am not seeing any improvement in me. My performances in contests is very poor and i am not able to solve div2 B or C questions. I am not able to figure out what's going wrong.. Please someone help me figure the way to practice effectively. I know this is a very common issue but still please help..
Auto comment: topic has been updated by kush_76 (previous revision, new revision, compare).
Solve some past, atleast 20-30 B and C problems. By doing so you will gain confidence. And also upsolve all those contests which you participated. And keep habit of reading hard problems too. Don't get afraid. If you look at my graph, I also had a poor start, but I am gradually improving.
Thanks alot..i just wanna ask you that when should i like..watch the editorials some say a day or so.. Some people say 20 minutes i am really confused
For A, and B I will tell that you should try for 30 mins at your level. For C and D you should think 20 mins.
I am saying this because I was also in the same phase, in spite of solving many questions I didn't improve. My mistake was, I would give up early just read editorial and see AC codes and submit and get AC.
But, this didn't improve but wasted time.
So I started to give different time for different level problems as said earlier. And this is just while practicing, never give up a real contest, keep struggling till the end.
And, one more thing which helped me is trying to always use pen and paper. Don't rush to code. Try making some small custom cases and try to solve them manually, like think how would you solve them manually. Sometimes for beginners like us, we are not able to think formally in terms of maths or code, but intuitively we can solve the problem if we try manually. But, we do the mistake of just looking at the question and staring and thinking.
I repeat, use pen and paper for all questions. Even if you couldn't solve it, after reading the editorial, do at least 2-3 cases on paper using editorial logic.
And, lastly, don't ever become discouraged. And for that you need to be very clear, why are you doing cp. And you shouldn't compare yourself with people those who solve A, B in minutes. Compare only with yourself and keep on practicing.
Good luck and have fun !
Yeah.. I also do the same read editorials in 19 minutes or so.. I will implement you approach and hope i'll improve.. Thanks alot
Give Virtual Contests and upsolve them