Can someone help me by giving me feedback on how to improve my rating? I am feeling stuck, I am unable to improve myslef, which results in making me stuck in Grey. This is also making me a bit frustrated.
What I do for practice -> I am solving this Sheet currently. I am currently practicing 1000-110 rated problems. I have solved the 800-900 rated problems from this. What I do while solving a problem is --> I first try to implement the intuition that first comes up, then I am either able to implement it or while implementing I realize my intuition is not correct, and after this, I just get stuck on one intuition, I am unable to think of any other intuition, I still try to come with an intuition which is very similar to I previously thought of. if I am unable to solve a problem after thinking for 30-60 mins, I look at the solution.
There are many times, when I am unable to think of any intuition and then I right away look at the solution within 20-30 mins
Like in the last Contest 969, I was unable to solve any problem, I started solving A and got frustrated when I thought my logic of finding coprime triplet, was giving WA. Then after feeling disappointed, I was unable to solve B, even though solving B required just a bit of observation
do more 1000-1300 problems. And once you solved try to see the editorial to see how to solve it in a different way. If u were unable to solve one see editorial or watch a video tutorial and try to understand the concept by yourself rather than jump into the next problem. also upsolve after a contest.
+1 for upsolving
And maybe try VC-ing more div 4s and div 3s
Learn ftt and other simple algorithms. That way you can become Green like me
What's FTT?
Fast Tourier Transform
I saw your graph, and saw that you just started CP in July. Don't stress too much about becoming green or anything as you are still new at it. Try solving the questions from 1000 to 1200 on the TLE sheet, and instead of just looking straight up at the solutions. Try to understand the reasoning behind the solution. That will help you improve for sure.
What to do in situations where I am unable to think of an intuition? What I do in these cases is just look at the editorial for hints or ask gpt for some hints on solving the problem.
That's ok, you need some way of building a new ways of thinking, you could just think about the problem but it will take time to figure it out sometimes, so what I would suggest if you don't have any idea look the editorial/hints and don't just copy the solution understand it and think of some improvements or other way of implementing.
And then you will encounter some new ways of thinking or new algorithm, and when that happens use google to understand it better.
And also don't just do the problem once, do it several times throughout a week so it gets stuck in you mind, not the problem itself but the idea of how to solve it, because you will see that you can implement it in some other problems. You can also use some extension like KEEP PROBLEM to write notes about the problem, it really helps sometimes.
And the main reason why are you still a newbie is that you should solve more 1200+ problems. It is simple just look at the profiles of other people nobody is 200+ rating above there level and solving only 1000s or -200 rating problems.
Two things-
When you solved/saw a tutorial for a question, try to retrospect and think why the solution was the way it was. Understand what chain of reasoning could have led someone to find it so you can do the same.
Just don't give a fuck about your rating. I know it isn't easy. Especially when you feel that it's a reflection of your progress/performance. Maybe set your goal to dedicate 1 hr each day to cf, and be satisfied if you do it.
Try not to put so much pressure on yourself for rating and only focus on the problems, one at a time. It's a good enough feeling when you see your algorithm finding the correct solution for every case the problem-setter could think of.
Got it! Also one more thing, many times the editorials are complex to understand, so is this normal, like me not being able to understand editorials right now is normal? will I be able to understand the editorials as time goes by?
Also while solving problems, if the intuition that came up first does not work, then what is your thought process after that?
Yeah, it's normal not to understand complex editorials. Though in most cases, you would probably get them by giving them some time, unless they use a concept you do not know about.
alright ! btw is this your 2nd account?
Sorry can't tell :)
is it wrong to have two accounts? like for smurfing?
Probably
For the first problem try to think some short approach that will do the task , generally first problem is of 800-900 rating which require very little brinstorming
yes I try to solve it with this type of mindset, and mostly I am able to solve 1st problem, until and unless the problem A is very heavy on math, like contest 969.
at least now I know that I have to think like that ( like we had to think for solving Problem2007A ) to solve a problem.
last round A was also not really math heavy there was observation yeah it took me alot of time too to find it out as I was also thinking of math but that observation was key to solve that problem.