Hi everyone, so recently I have been solving some 1200 rated problems from the problemset..and am facing difficulty in solving many of those problems. However , I am comfortable with the problems that have relatively straightforward approaches.. like the mathematical ones and some problems involving strings. But I am not able to solve the problems with out of the box approaches like in the problems Paranoid String and Madoka and the elegant String.

This has been causing me trouble in the contests as now-a-days, I am having a hard time solving Problem B but can solve Problem C relatively easily (which I think is pretty wierd lol) and due to this my contest rating has dropped from 1261 to 1134 as I spend way too much time on the B problem. It is sometimes quite demotivating :((

1)So , for these type of questions, should I spent more time on these problems (2-3hrs) which I currently do, or view the editorial after like 15-20 minutes?

2) Also, should I keep practising 1200 rated problems or move on to the 1300-1400 ones..?

Any advice would be appreciated :))