darklight13's blog

How to Practice new topics efficiently?
By darklight13, history, 5 years ago, In English

I had started competitive programming 10 months ago.Till now I have learned basic topics and learning things wasn't much of an issue. Recently, I have been up solving the contest problems and I am trying to learn new topics like Dynamic Programming,Trees and Graphs. After reading the theory part of a particular topic I usually search for tags and start solving problems. I rarely refer to editorials (till now) so sometimes problems with rating >=1900 takes me about 3-4 days to solve.

Can you share your experience or anything that worked out for you when you start with some new problem.

P.S: Looking for a better way to Improve :) Thanks in advanced!!

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5 years ago, # |
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5 years ago, # |
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Auto comment: topic has been updated by darklight13 (previous revision, new revision, compare).

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5 years ago, # |
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Can you share your strategy on how became Expert in 10 months?? I'm really struggling and depressed

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    5 years ago, # ^ |
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    You have solve only 50 question in 10 months. Solve atleast 300 — 400 question and give some more contest.

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      5 years ago, # ^ |
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      your profile looks so good(atleast for me) it gives me a hope that someday i will become blue

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      5 years ago, # ^ |
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      That must be the official problems solved I have solved more than 200 problems. I had started with a2oj ladders in the beginning, now I usually read topics from emaxx (cp algorithms). How do you practice new topics ss_loves_AC.

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      5 years ago, # ^ |
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      300 — 400 only? I solved 700 problems before I became expert :D

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5 years ago, # |
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See my profile ! I dunno what to do ? I'm on codeforces since last 9 Months and still a newbie. Please Help...I mostly see editorial of a problem if I can't solve it in 5 hours , Does this matter ? ss_loves_AC darklight13

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    5 years ago, # ^ |
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    You need to solve more hard problems, you solved only 10 problems of difficulty 1400

    Use difficulty indicator to choose problems that are outside your comfort zone. Start with a difficulty that you can solve 30% of problems by yourself in less than one hour, keep practicing in this difficulty until you can solve 70% by yourself and then move to a higher difficulty, that how I train. I read the tutorial if I can't solve the problem in 60 — 90 minutes.

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5 years ago, # |
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Bro,I think you are doing an excellent job.you become expert in just 10 months.pls share your strategy with us.

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5 years ago, # |
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Is any of these comments related to this post? :)

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5 years ago, # |
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See this sheet, it has a topics page. Problems are ordered by category and level Training roadmap for newcomers

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5 years ago, # |
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use this website to be good at topics you are learning, I didn't started to join live contests until now but I have learned a lot of topics with short time and solving from that website in (atcoder and codeforces) + CP3 book too it suggests problems to solve for topics and random problems based in your level at codeforces and atcoder https://code-drills.com/profile?handles=cf%2F"put your handle here and remove double quotes"

have a nice time brother

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4 years ago, # |
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I am facing difficulty in continuing with a particular topic.. I drop topics every now and then. To give you a perspective I started KMP ,watched a video, didn't understand a thing and dropped it same with matrix exponentiation and other topics.. Do you guys use some kind of pattern or something??

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    4 years ago, # ^ |
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    I don't give up. Duh.

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    4 years ago, # ^ |
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    https://www.hackerearth.com/practice/algorithms/string-algorithm/string-searching/tutorial/

    I tried to reinvent it in 12 hours, don't expect the tutorial to be easy to understand because if it is then congratulation you have an useless blackbox.

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      4 years ago, # ^ |
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      Such strategy would help you understand the algorithm by heart, but sometimes it's just too hard to came up with a solution for those problems. Have a try at any custom data structure invented by Chinese CPers and you will see :D

      BTW tuwuna orz

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    4 years ago, # ^ |
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    roshan_k You need motivation to finish a topic. If you any goal like campus placement, internship test, interview or something, believe me, you won't jump topics like this. [ I started KMP ,watched a video, didn't understand a thing and dropped it ] This story would have been completely different if you had any target like finishing this topic in 3 days or so. If you really needed to understand this topic you would have done it by now, and there is no lack of resources. You can find awesome tutorials, videos, even animations on internet.

    Suggestion: Do not leave a topic without solving at least 2-3 problems (even you can just follow the solution), and revise it after a week or so. You will see an improvement. Hope this helps.

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