I’ve been hovering around 1600 rating for some months now and some contests go well, while others stump me with problems I feel I really should be able to solve (often div 2 C). When I practice in virtual contests, I am able to get them pretty quickly though. I’ve thoroughly practiced 1500-1800 rated problems (without knowing topic) but still feel like there’s this glass barrier above me during most contests. Sometimes I rabbit-hole and miss “easy” ideas while a bunch of other people are able to solve it (like the last div 2 contest C problem). I’m not sure what exactly keeps holding me back, do you guys have any advice?
When I feel stuck I usually stop coding for a while (A week or more) then I restart from "low" level contest (In my case 1800 but u can start in the rate you feel confortable) then I start adding rating to the problems slowly, until I can feel more confident in my ideas and I focus on doing at least a problem a day in a big range of rating (in my case 1800 — 2200)
same is the feeling like stuck . ppl can probably laugh and can make joke of my profile .