It is about a certain class of interactive problems where you know that you can solve it in $$$n$$$ queries but instead the author wants you to solve it in $$$n - 1$$$ queries, I feel those kind of interactive problems are straight up bullshit.
From what I've observed, these problems follow a similar pattern: the natural solution is pretty straightforward, but the constraints doesn't benefit the solution and rather add unnecessary complexity.
This feels like over-engineering to me instead of encouraging algorithmic thinking. In the end, these problems waste everyone's time with negligible value addition.
I assume you're referencing C from this morning. I think the point of the problem is to figure out how to save 1 query. It's way too easy if you have n+2 or n+3, the whole point is finding how to do it in n+1
stop coping. Its fine as is, the point of this problem is to use pigeonhole, and that cant be possible if you don't need to save 1 in the first part.
how did you go from master all the way back to pupil?