BiNARyBeastt's blog

Finally reached Expert.
By BiNARyBeastt, history, 12 months ago, In English

In the recent div 2 contest, I finally became expert, and since a lot of people ask how to improve, I decided to share my own experience of competitive programming. It all started 1 and a half years ago, when I decided to go to the programming club of my school. Of course, it all started by a very tough problem (given a, b. Print a + b), but I managed to pull it off. And after solving a bunch of classic and simple problems like that, it was a big improvement, of course, considering that I knew nothing. But at some point, I started noting that I'm not really improving anymore (it was around the time when I started codeforces and didn't reach pupil yet). That's when I realized that it's great to have someone teaching you, but you need to work alone to keep improving.

I started solving codeforces problems more (Let's all take a minute of silence for my 1st amazing submission — 128902691). It all went pretty smooth until I reached pupil. I started learning more advanced algorithms such as binary search, prefix-sum, dfs, bfs, and a bit of dp. Even after that, I still didn't manage to become a specialist, and the way I became specialist was by starting to do more paper work and believe in myself. Most of the time, I'd say C is definitely hard for me and not even take half of the time in the contest.

Specialist was where I've been stuck for many months. I started learning segment tree, solving a bunch of high rated Segment tree problems on codeforces. I also learned 2d prefix sum, improved my dp knowledge, and of course solved many problems in these topics. I felt massive improvement in olympiads after doing those stuff, but I was really annoyed that I wasn't improving on codeforces. I decided to not give up and started solving div 2 D problems. I was rarely solving it during a contest, but many times I was managing to upsolve the div 2 D on my own (Don't be afraid of looking at the editorial, if you're not able to solve it). A final touch was giving some virtual contests and upsolving them. After that, I slowly started to increase from low 1400 to low 1600.

At the end of the day, I encourage you to follow the advice of smarter people, and I'll probably become specialist again in the next contest. :)

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12 months ago, # |
  Vote: I like it -126 Vote: I do not like it

Please don't take it as a hate comment but believe me if it was a normal div2 contest like not div1+div2 where candidate masters compete in div1 u would have not reached expert.

Also my rating increased and if it would have been normal round, i am sure that it would have decreased.

To reach expert, you have to solve D and once reaching expert u have to either solve D consistently or A,B,C very fast.....but looking at today's contest it seems u already had 3 wrong submission in C so i think u get what i wanted to say!

Btw, Keep Grinding , Hope to see you real expert when you actually solve D :)

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    12 months ago, # ^ |
      Vote: I like it +62 Vote: I do not like it

    No need to diminish someone's accomplishments based on arbitrary criteria. Btw, this is a logical fallacy.

    No true Scotsman

    A: You need to solve ABCD in a div2 round to reach expert.
    B: Well, I reached expert and I can't do that.
    A: But all real experts can.

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    12 months ago, # ^ |
      Vote: I like it -16 Vote: I do not like it

    Me thinking how baseless and illogical someone can be.

    Btw, congrats BiNARyBeastt!

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    12 months ago, # ^ |
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    You don't need to solve D to reach expert(at least that's how it was when I reached it). You just need to speedrun ABC

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      12 months ago, # ^ |
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      Why u all are taking my point negetievly, i just wanted to say that candidate masters were not competing with us and it would have been tough to get under 1000 rank by just solving A,B,C even with normal speed as per my experience in normal div2 contest to reach expert u need to solve A,B,C within 40min and looking at writer's submission of the concerned contest it seemed, he solved it in an hour even with 3 wrong submissions.

      I know now this ans will again get downvoted like hell, but doesn't matter now, seems enoug :(

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        12 months ago, # ^ |
          Vote: I like it +17 Vote: I do not like it

        Everyone is taking your point negatively because you worded it in a very negative way. Saying "don't take it as a hate comment" isn't a magic spell that enables you to say whatever stuff you please. You basically said:"You got expert because of a good environment, not because you are good, if you were in a standard situation, you would've lost rating", which doesn't even make sense to me? Rating in cf is calculated with some version of an elo formula, which doesn't depend on the ranking, but rather on amount of strong people you have beaten and weak people you lost against. Since he was a specialist, he would not lose a lot of rating from a bunch of CMs outperforming him, since he's supposed to be worse, and he will benefit greatly from CMs that are not doing well, granted that you are doing well of course. So I don't know how lack of CMs can increase your delta (especially by 19 points!!!)

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    12 months ago, # ^ |
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    A contest is a contest, no point dunking on someone for feeling good about their achievement. What good does that bring to anyone?

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    12 months ago, # ^ |
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    To reach an expert, you have to solve D.

    Who said that?? There is no rule like that. I have seen many experts by speed forcing ABC. The competition is not only about how much you can solve, it's also about how fast and accurate you are!!. I hope you understand and rethink it from zero.

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    12 months ago, # ^ |
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    According to you, he got lucky today which you don't count as merit but i think it's fine, he didn't get anything that he didn't deserve, competetive programming is a sport just like any other where good luck plays an important part and so does bad luck, there may have been many instances where he must have been awfully unlucky, it's totally random and it's nobody's fault and we just accept what we get, the good and the bad, and it all evens out in the end.

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12 months ago, # |
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congrats ;)

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12 months ago, # |
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Congrats!

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12 months ago, # |
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can you provide those 2d prefix sum problem which you solved!

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    12 months ago, # ^ |
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    At the moment I only remember this one — 1731D - Valiant's New Map. It's very straightforward with 2d segment tree but if you think a bit more you can notice a nice approach with 2d prefix sum.

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      12 months ago, # ^ |
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      I used maximal square approach from leetcode combined with binary search to solve this

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12 months ago, # |
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and since a lot of people ask how to improve, I decided to share my own experience of competitive programming

huh

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    12 months ago, # ^ |
      Vote: I like it +1 Vote: I do not like it

    There are many blogs where people ask "How to become specialist?" or something else.

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12 months ago, # |
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congrats :D

But what about math ? What knowledge do you have to become a specialist ?

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    12 months ago, # ^ |
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    Math definitely helps you. Not because of the theorems (you still use them but very rarely), but because it improves your problem solving skill and it's something that you're required here in programming too. But you don't need to be good in math to become specialist.

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12 months ago, # |
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Congratulations Man. You did great. Keep Grinding one day, you will post the same for the candidate master.
Ignore that first guy. There was no need to say that. Success is a success no matter whether it's small or big.

💚💚

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12 months ago, # |
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Your rating graph is nice, very inspiring! Congrats!

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12 months ago, # |
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gratz, i almost became an expert too, lol

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12 months ago, # |
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congrats

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12 months ago, # |
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you just have to get a near 1400 rank in div2 to become an expert which comes if you solve C problem in a moderate speed like faster than 60 to 70 percent users in case problem c is not super easy other wise its speedrun.

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