Fermented AMA Answers
AMA answers are like a fine wine, they get better with age because of a complex chemical reaction occurring among sugars, acids and substances known as phenolic compounds. In time, this chemical reaction can affect the taste of wine in a way that gives it a pleasing flavor [much like getting the responses to an AMA started by someone who remembers they have a blog once a month]. Thank you Google for that smashing intro.
Can you share your practice strategy like which site, how you selected problems, etc?
I spent the first 6-7 months just practicing Codeforces problems around my rating and the last few months have been spent on AtCoder. When I was on Codeforces, I would just practice problems close to my rating from tags that challenged me; on AtCoder, I’m solving the entire problemset by ascending rating (you can find AtCoder problem ratings here). But if you’ve been a reader for a while, you’ll know that my practice strategies have… been questionable in the past and even commented on by Um_nik, so should you really take my advice? I think as long as you practice hard, high-quality problems, the site and selection are both negligible.
How to stop stagnation?
Practice. If you’re solving challenging problems and being critical of your performance, stagnation isn’t a permanent state; but rather, a rest stop on your way up. Personally, I’ve found it helpful to always believe in what I’m doing and know that once things click, the rating will follow my skills up too.
How should one balance school and CP?
I put school first and with good study habits, usually have quite a bit of time left over for CP. If you don’t have too much time for CP after school work, that’s just how it is sometimes. If you’re tight on time and still want to improve, my advice is to work consistently everyday instead of long grind sessions every once in a while. Not only is it a lot more fun this way, you’ll also end up getting more practice time in so win-win!
Did you do math before you started?
Yep, I spent about a week in math club during middle school which meant I was a math powerhouse before doing CP. Jokes aside, I was complete garbage at math starting out which for anyone new to competitive programming - it’s a pretty big problem. Not only is math an integral part of competitive programming, it also teaches you how to approach problems in a structured way. In my humble opinion, the best way to improve if you also feel like math isn’t a strong suit is to grind AtCoder which is full of math heavy CP problems. Also since we’re talking about math, I have to say it: screw Goldbach’s Conjecture.
real question is when are you joining usaco server again :weary:
:pensive:
How old are you?
A few months from getting rejected from MIT.
Nice progress! How much do you bench though?
With COVID giving me yet another reason to not start going to the gym, I’ve yet to bench anything in my entire life or even get within an 100 feet radius of a weight machine. I do enjoy running and calisthenics though, not sure how that translates to benching though.
Did you practice adhoc problems ? How important do you think is the ability to solve adhoc problems to cross a rating of 2000 ?
As you progress through the ratings, the importance of adhoc rises proportionally. I’d say from 0-1600, you don’t need to solve any adhoc, but once you start making that trek towards CM and Master, you’ll need to solve Div2 D, Es which take more and more adhoc skills. I’ve never specifically set out to practice adhoc, but harder problems + AtCoder naturally tend towards more adhoc styled problems.
how many hours did you practice each day , how consistent were you, and most important of all HOW did you know you were improving ? I would like to know the average monthly schedule of yours. Also how much time did you give to the problems without reading editorials. Could you share the list of the problems you practiced on CF and atcoder in that order. Also which are the data structures etc that you learnt during this time.
“please don’t be offended but this is so grey” by -is-this-fft-
Outro
Reading this back, the entire post turned out to be an elaborate advertisement for AtCoder, so hey … feel free to sponsor me rng_58! But guess I’ve met my monthly post quota, so I’ll see you guys back here in December. Unless?
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