Hello Codeforces Community,
I’ve been actively participating on Codeforces for almost a year now. During this time, I’ve solved over 1000 problems, with around 100 of them in the rating range [800, 1700]. I even created this account specifically to grind from the very beginning and build up my skills from scratch.
Despite all the effort, I feel like my progress has hit a wall—especially in contests.
What’s more discouraging is that my contest performance is noticeably worse. For example, I still struggle to solve Div. 2 C problems during contests. Even though I spend time after contests analyzing problems, writing detailed notes with observations, math notations, and even trying to rigorously prove solutions, I often end up with wrong answers (WA) or fail to implement the ideas correctly.
This has left me wondering: What am I doing wrong? Despite the volume of problems I’ve practiced and the effort I put into understanding solutions, I don’t feel that improvement is reflecting in my contest performance.
I would truly appreciate any advice or insights from those who’ve experienced something similar or managed to overcome this kind of plateau. What should I change in my approach? How can I bridge the gap between understanding problems and actually solving them during contests?
Thank you in advance!
Auto comment: topic has been translated by a_rise (original revision, translated revision, compare)
Keep giving contests bro
Yes, I will.
brother you have done 90+ 1200, 1300, 1400, 1500, 1600, 1700 how do you not improve.
I couldn’t solve them during the contest
Auto comment: topic has been updated by a_rise (previous revision, new revision, compare).
Could be your contest temperatment.
Train to be calm in contest to perform well on unseen probelms.
yes, working on that.
My 2 cents:
I think you aren't solving most of the problems that you AC'd, as in you're using too much assistance.
Try doing virtual contests.
Thank you for the feedback! I see what you mean. I’ve been relying a bit too much on outside help (hints/other code) when I get stuck. I’ll make sure to spend more time trying to solve problems on my own and focus on building my problem-solving skills without rushing to look at solutions. I really appreciate your advice!
you've mentioned above that you try to "rigorously prove solutions" after contests. Instead, i would recommend not proving them but getting the intuition and following it even if you don't have complete mathematical proof of it yet. This is helpful because during contests, you don't have time to prove everything. Over time, this will improve your intuition. One point where this goes slightly wrong is when your intuition is not fully developed. During that time, you'll take wrong paths more often than right ones. But, over time, you'll improve, specially in terms of time taken to solve the problems.
Sure.
Count how many times you able to solve any problem without any hint within 30 mins. Even if there are 3-4 time out of 10 question. Try to practice lower rating first, and try to solve within 20 mins without any hint or help. After solving 20-30 problem without help you hit feel not worth doing problem on same rating, then you will increase it. Practice by grouping problem in this way 800-1000, 1100-1200, 1300-1500. Any master each category on each rating group like Number theory, Binary search, Sorting, DP. Once level up group when you comfortably solves at least 8 out of 10 without help. It will take time, but it can't be gain in hurry. If this strategy won't work, try to tweak yourself which feels will help you, without taking any burden(in hurry). Also every time you see a hint, I would say that should not count at problem solved, that should be a new learning. So actual problem solve will be fast solving and not hint. In live content number of actual problem solving helps, even if learning is good.
Thank you for the detailed advice, rajeev_singh! I really like your point about considering problems solved only if I don’t use hints. It’s a good way to measure actual progress, and I’ll make sure to stick to that approach moving forward. Thanks again for the practical suggestions.