Hi Codeforces,

The first round of USACO is probably going to start within a month. I am currently a sophomore in high school and I wish to enter Platinum division this time. I'm pretty confident that I can enter Gold division, but I am still uncertain in how to train more effectively so that I can achieve my goal.

So here is the thing, a lot of experienced people suggest that the best way to practice is to do a lot of random problems on CF with suitable ratings. I have been training that way for a while, and I can now solve most of the problems from 1700 — 1800.

However, is doing random problems really helpful for USACO performances? Because OI is still quite different from CF problems, and most of the USACO Gold problems are among DP, Graph Theory (short paths, MST etc.) and sometimes Data Structure and Strings (at least that's what I think). So I also made several problem lists on those topics which consists of many past gold problems. But I found my training process to progress more slowly, and I wonder if that's the right strategy to practice?

Can anyone also share their strategy to enter Platinum division? Thanks :)