aadit.ambadkar's blog

Hot Take: Competitive Math helps with Competitive Programming
By aadit.ambadkar, history, 16 months ago, In English

and vice versa!

Both are ultimately forms of problem-solving, and getting better one has (at least in my experience) helped me get better at the other.

What do you all think?

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16 months ago, # |
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It's not a hot take at all in this ad-hoc observation centric meta.

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    16 months ago, # ^ |
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    You described things perfectly.

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16 months ago, # |
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Remember that correlation does not mean causation.

What I mean is that if you have never done competitive math before, and you start doing it, it most likely won't mean that your CF rating will increase. But then why is it that most ppl who do competitive math are better at CP you may ask?

Well if you are doing both competitive programming and competitive math, it is more than likely that you have a passion for problem solving. And if you have a passion for problem solving, you are likely good at it which will help when doing CP.

So to summarise, it is not that ppl who do competitive math get better at problem solving and therefore get better at CP. Rather, it is the other way round. Only ppl who are already passionate about problem solving and are already good at it will do competitive math. Therefore, these ppl will also excel at CP — because they have an inherent passion for problem solving.

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    16 months ago, # ^ |
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    I agree — It's mostly about how much you love and how much time you dedicate to problem solving and each activity that makes the difference. Excelling in one does not give you free magic to ace the other :)

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16 months ago, # |
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i think i lose half of my IQ whenever i do competitive math ... or regular math for that matter T_T

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16 months ago, # |
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Is there some sort of online platform where there are some kind of maths contest (open for all) ?
A lot of maths competitions I found were offline, and most limited to Grade 1 — 12. Hence cant participate.

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16 months ago, # |
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I feel I'm one of the fewer ones here who got better at math because of CP rather than the opposite :)

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