Auto comment: topic has been updated by anupamshah_ (previous revision, new revision, compare).

I don't think there is any exhaustive list of methods to try. But what I'll try first is to typically try to spot some pattern/structure in the problem by making some observation on the samples, trying to create some small cases, etc. Sometimes, I might just write brute force first to make sure that I have a working algo. Perhaps from the brute force, I might be able to spot some optimization trick to write the optimal solution. If I am still stuck at this stage, I would probably give up. Because there is a good chance that I am missing an idea about number theory/some isolated algo concept.

Auto comment: topic has been updated by anupamshah_ (previous revision, new revision, compare).

• https://mirror.codeforces.com/problemset/problem/74/E
• https://mirror.codeforces.com/problemset/problem/23/C
• https://mirror.codeforces.com/problemset/problem/1196/F
• https://mirror.codeforces.com/problemset/problem/1244/F
• https://mirror.codeforces.com/problemset/problem/1244/G
• https://mirror.codeforces.com/problemset/problem/468/C
• https://mirror.codeforces.com/problemset/problem/1182/D
• https://mirror.codeforces.com/problemset/problem/356/D