Evaluating problem difficulty for hard problems during problem setting?

Revision en1, by haleyk100198, 2018-03-25 16:56:20

Hi CodeForces!

Recently I have been trying to set some problems on my own, but soon I find out that it's hard to evaluate the exact difficulty of the harder problems. I setted up five problems and endeavoured most of my effort into the hardest one, after testing it with my testers I made the problem even harder. Originally I was aiming for a div2E problem, but it turns out after raising the difficulty me and my tester decided that it should never be a div2E problem, and we aren't too sure whether it should be div1D or div1E (partially due to our lack of experience in solving them).

To all the problem setters out there, especially the ones who have setted div1 contest before, what's the difference between div1D and 1E problems to you in terms of difficulty? Or do you just set problems and sort them in terms of difficulty without considering "it should fit the difficulty of XXX" at the first place?

I know maybe I should follow my feelings and make my own decision since I am the one who know the best about my own mysterious problem, but I really don't want to have a terrible debut on problem setting, so I would really appreciate some foresights from the community. =]

Tags problem setting

History

 
 
 
 
Revisions
 
 
  Rev. Lang. By When Δ Comment
en2 English haleyk100198 2018-03-26 07:03:55 13 Tiny change: 'blem, but it turns out after r' -> 'blem, but after r'
en1 English haleyk100198 2018-03-25 16:56:20 1263 Initial revision (published)