This generally works for every rating, the methods of improving probably look more or less same to each other, since it's just solving harder problems, learning new topics, practicing a lot any way. Yeah i was stuck in expert for a long time, but with myself i think its quite a different story: I came here from olympiad math, my school math teacher is a strong ol. math teacher and is my cp teacher at the same time (handle iamexist), and he introduced us into cp. To be honest I know little amount of algorithms or data structures and don't do cp that much, but my math skills are what makes it hella easier for me. I guess i was stuck at expert for too long because it was the point where my coding skills in combination with math and constructive experience was not good enough to continue: either i needed to spend a lot of time or get to a next level of uniting these two different things. And it just was that i gradually got a bit better at coding and getting use of math ideas to better And quicker solve cf problems, and cm title at some point came by its own, and so on. Maybe in the future if i have some time left after studying math, I will learn harder programming (not math) topics and get even better:) Wouldn't really call it math skills though, some tough olympiad math is almost never needed, its rather ideas of how to solve problems based on math experience. Im certainly not the best person to ask for advices lol, since i often have problems on my own, but yea, what i mentioned above, also try to often practice the topics you're bad at, while also improving your stronger topics, practice a lot, and it sometimes helps to have some competition, e.g. friends about same level or better, it quite helps to the motivation; never give up if you want to reach a certain goal and feel like you can do it if you study at your best. And what also helps me: when i compete i try not to think about the result, since you should mainly enjoy the problems and gain experience, being stressed or panicking, or getting happy too early sometimes lowers your concentration. Pretty sure you know everything by yourself though) as i said, im not the best adviser)) anyway hope i helped you a bit and wish you luck!