aniketpriyadarshi's blog

How to get a gold in IOI in four years.
By aniketpriyadarshi, history, 2 years ago, In English

Hello, I am in class 9 beginning and my current rating is 851. I currently have very little knowledge in algorithms like dp and stuff. I am also finding it hard to balance high school and competitive programming so I have just have 6-7 hours to practice.

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2 years ago, # |
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I don't know much about the IOI, I was an adult by the time I discovered competitive programming. I do know that 4 years is a long time, though. It's great that you have a long-term goal; my suggestion would be that you keep that idea in your mind for motivational purposes, but in the meantime come up with a more focused plan for getting off the ground in terms of competitive programming generally.

A good start at your current rating would be to filter the problemset and look exclusively at problems in the range 800 to 1000. Then a good strategy is:

  • 1) attempt a problem
  • 2a) if you succeed, review the code of others and the editorial to see if there was an easier way to solve the problem, and to check you understand the concepts involved. If you learn new tricks or theory, write them down
  • 2b) if you fail, review the code of others and the editorial to see how you should have approached the problem, write down what you learn, close all those tabs and try the problem again
  • 3) repeat until comfortable at the 800-1000 level
  • 4) change the difficulty filters
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2 years ago, # |
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"I only have 4 years and 6-7 hours per day to practice" wow. I would bet that not a single person has kept an average of 6 hours of practicing per day for a period that long (4 years). Or maybe I am too lazy. Maybe if you manage to skip multiple classes in school and if you are incredibly disciplined.

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2 years ago, # |
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No chance?

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2 years ago, # |
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Try Usaco guide, it is very complete and it helps me qualifying to ioi in less than a year (here).

I also found competitive programmer's handbook book a complete source of theory though I'll add some more math theory (here), and I'll combine this with cses problem set (here).

Though the hardest part is to keep enough motivation during four years and keeping four hours a day for such a long time. Even I, who trained 2-3 hours a day had motivation crisis in 8 months I trained. Look for some friends because training together and knowing how others are doing help you stay motivated (personal experience) and my last tip will be to set some short goals, a long term goal like that is very different to what you are probably used to, like in school, you don't prepare for university access test 4 year before, you have monthly exams to make a path to this kind of exams, cp is similar, set a rating for 1 month for example.

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    2 years ago, # ^ |
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    How did you qualify for IOI in less than a year!?

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      2 years ago, # ^ |
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      training a lot, in total it was like 800 hours or so, also I traing 6 hours a day the month before because the last two week or so are the more important in my experience and beeing confident, focus and have a wide repertory of recent problems solved to get ideas for others problems was crucial. Also I got lucky, not gonna lie and it is spain, not the USA, qualifying from USA is like 5 times harder (I say this because you are from USA). Btw I manage to beat an international master in codeforces, that is just for telling you the level in Spain.

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8 months ago, # |
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Bro left

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    8 months ago, # ^ |
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    Surprised to see such a recent comment

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