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stdfloat's blog

By stdfloat, 8 months ago, In English

I have a request for everyone reading this blog: please post a comment sharing what you do/did for IOI training (or perhaps for other OIs). I'm primarily interested in hearing what you actually do/did, not what you would recommend to someone else who's training for IOI (though if you want to give advice, please feel free to do so).

Another request: please answer these questions if you can
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8 months ago, # |
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I Played MineCraft .)

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8 months ago, # |
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An unrelated take, it seems like you're aiming for the IOI. I know I'm not qualified enough by any means to say this but you might be solving too much low-rated problems (for a strong OI-er).

I looked at your profile and this is what it shows

By looking through profiles of strong OI-ers and IOI medalists in my own country, they've solved plenty of problems with difficulty of at least 2100+. Your solving effort is indeed incredible, but I think you'll improve even more by solving harder problems. Good luck!

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    8 months ago, # ^ |
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    Thanks.

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    8 months ago, # ^ |
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    2100 can't guarantee you even bronze. You should be able to solve at least half of ~2400+ rated problems you face (assuming op aims for medal)

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      8 months ago, # ^ |
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      Eh, I disagree, you're putting the bronze bar too high. Getting bronze at IOI usually requires ~30/100 per problem on average of all 6, which never has anything particularly complex. It's more about strong mental and practice on proper problem types (which admittedly is not CF). But there is no way consistently solving 2400+ is truly a prerequisite for just bronze.

      Most people I know who failed to get bronze were aiming for silver/gold and choked. If you're aiming for bronze it's actually easier than if you're aiming higher.

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        8 months ago, # ^ |
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        Not usually? It was the case for this year, but it wasn't like that for few previous years. Also yeah, it's not that I imply that you can't get bronze without being able to solve 2400+ problems, there are such examples at this year's IOI as well, but rather if you're aiming for medal and want to be certain at least in bronze — there's no way your medal will be almost certain when you can't solve at least half of the difficult problems you face.

        Also, I mean, practicing on difficult problems (even cf type ones) does train a strong mentality which, once again, increases your chances for medal.

        Also my opinion is still that being able to consistently solve those is perquisite for just bronze — simply because it can't guarantee you silver, thus it'll be just a matter of luck.

        Also I don't know anyone who'd aim for silver/gold and fail to get even bronze. As well as I don't know many people who'd aim exactly for bronze and get it (I admit there are such). So far I know many people aiming for gold and getting silver (and look, here by "aiming for gold" I mean the people whose skill was actually enough for gold), even more people aiming for silver+ and getting bronze (about 20 just for IOI2023, and who had enough skill for silver+, those were people around cf-GM level and with gold medals at many other olympiads), and surely I know a lot of people aiming for bronze and not getting anything. So I really can't agree with your last point

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        8 months ago, # ^ |
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        Also yeah, bronze bar itself really isn't high and having enough skill it's easy to get it. Problem is that at the actual contest you out of sudden perform way below your actual skill.

        Add: i admit that I may be wrong, your IOI experience is way above mine =)

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          8 months ago, # ^ |
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          That's precisely what I meant by "you need strong mental" and knowing people who aimed high and failed hard. There's a lot of mental struggle when you're not able to solve any problem and you're sitting there with the time ticking.

          That's why I believe if you're content with bronze, it might actually be mentally easier to get it. In most years you just need all the reasonable partial solutions, and occasionally you may need to solve the easiest problem (but often just good partials is sufficient).

          Perhaps my memories are biased or my estimation of CF problem difficulties is wrong, but it just sounds to me that the majority of these "30/100 IOI task partial subtasks" are rarely on the level of 2400+ rated problems.

          Having said that I'm not advocating for purposefully not solving hard problems, but more claiming that if you're going for bronze, you should be fully mentally prepared that you might not be able to solve a single IOI problem fully, and that should not discourage you. That mentality will probably reduce your "maximal possible placement" but significantly improve your bronze medal chances.

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            8 months ago, # ^ |
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            Yeah, they of course usually aren't of level 2400+ (30/100 subtasks) =)

            But it's usually hard to actually collect even 30+ on each problem (unless you specially aim for that)

            Anyway, I agree with everything said by you further

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      7 months ago, # ^ |
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      sirs, i can barely do that now (and definitely not at ioi time)

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      7 months ago, # ^ |
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      seduneon got IOI silver in 2022

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    8 months ago, # ^ |
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    Im just kidding im not even old enough to participate

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    8 months ago, # ^ |
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    Hi, this is unrelated, but where can I find those charts? I tried to search it on internet, but couldn't find it anywhere.

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8 months ago, # |
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Counts only own self-taught stuffs..

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    8 months ago, # ^ |
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    What?

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      8 months ago, # ^ |
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      Creators are self-taughts, and people who are trying to get into IOI are following others so they definitely have no chances to qualify on IOI.. Only if they have really neat mentors

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8 months ago, # |
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Bought a new hands-free, as the previous one has been swallowed by my sister.

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8 months ago, # |
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I think that CF rarely correlates with IOI. To do good at IOI the best option is to do a lot of IOI style problems. I mean, of course if you are 2700+ rated, than you will probably do good at IOI. However, if you are lower rated and want to do good at IOI, training just for IOI is more optimal.

I think these things helped me to become better at IOI style contests:

  • Finishing most of USACO silver and gold problems.

  • Training on AtCoder problems.

  • Trying different IOI style olympiads on oj.uz. I think JOI problems are very helpfull, because they are interesting and challending. Last year 3 out of 6 problems on IOI were proposed by Yoneda brothers from Japan. Therefore, I think it's a good idea to train on JOI contests.

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    8 months ago, # ^ |
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    Atcoder is even worse for training for ioi bruh

    Add: unless you solve very old AGCs, then yes, otherwise nowadays atcoder style of problem is even further from ioi style than cf.

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      8 months ago, # ^ |
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      then what is the recommended website to train on except usaco?

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        8 months ago, # ^ |
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          8 months ago, # ^ |
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          and if you are a beginner? or should one grind through it?

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            8 months ago, # ^ |
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            The question of OP was about IOI preparation. I think there are multiple blogs on codeforces that will advise better strategies for beginners than I would.

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5 months ago, # |
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Im not qualified to answer your 2 and 3 question but ill tell you how i prepared for JBOI. I find a problem and think about during boring classes. I choose a problem with the smallest difficulty im not comfortable with (1400 at the time). And this ended up earning me HM. Thought , in the meanwhile ive abandoned this practice method , instead i upsolve from contests and do virtual ones more often.

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5 months ago, # |
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I would say the most important thing for IOI, at least if you are aiming for a bronze, is work your coding speed and your mental strength, IOI bronze aren't usually that hard if you are able to solve the "easy" subtask of each problem, and many of this subtasks ask you to do multiple codes for each subtask, so you want to be able to focus on that, and not get lost in desperation, if you aren't getting that many points. To work on this, I think you should make virtual OI-type exams, so you get used to working through this multiple subtasks problems, that aren't that common in codeforces. And then also work on your coding speeds in fast fingers exams. Basically get yourself around 20 problems around B div2, and try to solve as many as you can in a 2 hour time frame, this will help you to be able to program as fast as you can, so you can solve as many task as you can on IOI.

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5 months ago, # |
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I basically do nothing except the occasional codeforces contest which is why I can't even make camp :clown:

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5 months ago, # |
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I currently solve the problems I hate the most. A needed prerequisite for a good IOI medal is to have good knowledge in every aspect of informatics, which is best assured when solving the tasks you dislike, because most of the time they include a topic or idea you have never heard of.

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5 months ago, # |
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listened to GFRIEND

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5 months ago, # |
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virtualed previous IOI and other OI's like BOI,CEOI,APIO etc.