Norp's blog

Pupil in 80 days — Day 13
By Norp, 5 weeks ago, In English

Hello codeforces!

Today I gave my best, in general I solved about 6-7 problems of difficulty 1100-1400, as always I still have unsolved problems, because according to those who know more than me, tutorials are not that helpful in increasing skill, they just show one of solutions. I’m already thinking that I won’t use tutorials to find a solution, but rather I’ll leave these problems and try to solve them again after a certain period of time. Also today I found good materials about prefixes and suffixes, and solved several problems on them.

Plans for tomorrow:

Prepare for the upcoming Div.4, solve problems from the archive, solve a mashup from the coach.

Till tomorrow!

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5 weeks ago, # |
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Do you think I will reach my goal before 80 days???

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5 weeks ago, # |
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good job on learning the theory, keep it up

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5 weeks ago, # |
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hmm, you should change it to "specialist" in 80 days, i think 80 days will be so much for u to reach pupil :)

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    4 weeks ago, # ^ |
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    What do think is the average time to reach specialist? i have like a challenge to reach it befor half of June. and i dont think i could do it there is so much topics to learn

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      4 weeks ago, # ^ |
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      What are those topics you are referring to?, just how binary search works, prefix sum, built-in data structures and basic math like Gauss sum should be enough in my opinion.

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        4 weeks ago, # ^ |
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        more like dp and graphs...number theory this kind of suff like when i should start learning them is it befor i get to specialist or after?

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5 weeks ago, # |
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I am in learning process, but can go beyond 950 Rating, guide me with some advice ?

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    4 weeks ago, # ^ |
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    More solved problems, more practice

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4 weeks ago, # |
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"tutorials are not that helpful in increasing skill, they just show one of solutions"

Uhhhh, I disagree?

Editorials are amazing. I always check them even for problems that I was able to do on my own. Many times the editorialist have a way cleaner and clever solution than yours and you are able to learn so much from them.

Also it helps with proofs. Maybe you guessed that some observation was right, tested it and got AC, but you have no idea how to prove it. Editorials are great to learn how to actually prove something.

About reading editorials for problems you haven't solved yet:

My belief is that if you have tried for long enough on your own and are stuck, and by stuck I mean "I am staring at my computer screen without a single thought in my head because I have no idea even how to begin to do this", continue to be in this state may be very counter-productive and just not that fun for some people (me included).

If you don't want to read the entire editorial, maybe see if it has hints, or maybe read the first one or two sentences of it to see if you get an idea and are able to finish it on your own.

The big problem with not trying to actually solve the problem and reading the editorial is that you just forget the solution because you don't even understand what was the thought process that someone would even use to get to that solution.

So yeah, I think editorials are dope if you know how to use them to your advantage.

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    4 weeks ago, # ^ |
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    You probably misunderstood me, I meant that you don't have to use tutorials. If you are completely out of ideas, you can still leave this task and solve it after some time. In my opinion, finding a solution yourself will be more effective than taking it from a tutorial. I apologize if someone did not understand me

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      4 weeks ago, # ^ |
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      For me personally I would just forget about the problem if I left it to solve it another time xD

      I understood what you meant, I just wanted to give my thoughts in the topic so maybe you could look at editorials in a different light.

      At the end of the day, if you have fun doing your way of studying, keep going! I don't think there's a right or wrong way of studying if you're enjoying yourself.

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4 weeks ago, # |
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Isnt the goal alittile bit easy? beacause 80 days is a LOT

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4 weeks ago, # |
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There are problems that require some observation, specific technique, or idea (like estimate of number of divisors) that you don't know, and while it's of course possible to come up with it by yourself you need to be a genius to do that, so for mere mortals reading and learning it is faster way to improve than inventing. But there are problems where you just need to imagine the data model and understand what goes where and how calculate it fast (using prefix sum in 295A), in that cases reading editorial will teach you very little because it just skips the understanding part and says what to do.

So rule of thumb is if you understand the problem, but after hard think have no idea how to get to the answer (missing couple pieces of puzzle) read editorial. If you struggle with grasping the problem itself then take a pen and paper and grind it.

And also, reading editorial after you solved any problem is also very good, to find what you could (or did) differently/better/simpler.

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