I often see advice like “learn math” or “study number theory”, but that’s too broad.

What I actually want to know is: From your own experience, what specific math topics did you find most important between newbie → pupil (800–1200 rating)?

For example, instead of just saying number theory, please mention which part: gcd/lcm, modular arithmetic, primes, factorization, etc. Same for combinatorics, geometry, algebra, etc.

It would be even better if anyone can share stats (like how often certain math appears in problems of this range).

Please share your knowledge, Thanks for the attention!

Hello Codeforces Team & Problemsetters,

First of all, thank you for your continuous efforts in preparing contests. The problems are always fun, educational, and push us to improve.

That said, I’d like to raise a small but important point. After contests, ratings get finalized and surveys are taken, but one crucial thing is often delayed or sometimes forgotten: adding rating tags to the problems.

For many of us—especially beginners—it’s very hard to judge the difficulty level of problems. Having the official rating tags provides huge benefits:

We can immediately understand whether a solved problem was below, at, or above our current level.

It gives us a clearer picture of our actual progress during contests.

It allows us to practice smarter, since we can specifically target problem ratings that match our goals.

Without these tags, many newcomers feel lost about how to measure their improvement or what to practice next.

That’s why I kindly request: please ensure that every contest problem receives its rating tag as soon as possible after the contest ends. This small change would make a big difference for the community’s learning experience.

Thank u for your time and for considering this suggestion

If u find this blog as an important addition plz comment your awareness about the issue[Sorry my EN is bad]

Hello Codeforces!

I just wanted to write this short post to thank sammyuri for preparing and authoring Codeforces Round 1044 (Div. 2).

The round was absolutely amazing — six problems with a really nice difficulty curve (500–1000–1750–2250–2750–3250), clear statements, and even one possibly interactive problem to spice things up. What impressed me the most was that he was the only author of the contest, yet the round felt so complete and balanced.

Also, the system testing finished really fast, which shows how well-prepared the problems and test cases were.

As a participant, I truly enjoyed solving the problems and it motivated me to keep learning and improving. It’s not easy to manage all aspects of a contest — from problemsetting, testing, coordination, and polishing everything — but sammyuri managed it in the best possible way.

So from the bottom of my heart: Thank you, sammyuri, for your hard work and for giving us such a great round!

Good luck to everyone in future contests!

— Abu_Safat_Siam

Hello! Most of us get annoyed while reading the sample case answers trying to find the right test answer , specially while

contest going on, I am asking the CF community if they can add numbering indicators to the sample case outputs as it is added to

the input section?

Hi, CF Community ! I am totally beginner in CP , only know some basic implementation currently trying to learn some new easy

algorithms but the problem I am facing on solving every problem is that I just can't get out of this brute force thinking every

time I try to solve problems I can't find any other idea instead of brute force approach , how to get of this ?I Always get TLE

whenever submit a code most of these O(n^2) algorithms fails as the time limit is almost 1s on every question, asking respected

seniors and experts how do u overcame this issue when u was new ?

It's been more than 48 hours , but no update from the official cf community . Why this system testing is taking so long to update

the official ratings . Or i am the only one who isn't updated yet , I am newbie not so experienced about this testing issues and

why the server went down today at about 8'o clock in the morning (UTC+06:00) was it got hacked?