What should I do to improve my performance on CodeChef?

I have been solving questions on CodeChef since almost an year,i have solved around 100 problems till now, and i solve an average of 3 questions per contest. But i don’t know how to improve myself, Can anyone give me suggestions?

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If you are solving three problems ,its not bad. What you can do from here is

  1. Solve 100+ problems on spoj. Then you will be able to solve 5-6 problems easily.
  2. Stick to the problem for long ,think on your own and give more try before looking at solution.
    You will definitely improve. All the best.
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Thank you, but I am a rookie in matter of algorithms and data structures. How should I improve in that area?

Pick up a copy of Competitive Programming by Steven and Felix Halim. It’s an excellent introduction to solving contest problems.

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Hi, @dwatson_bynes
To improve your performance the one and only thing required is PRACTICE. Practice as much as you can. If you lack in the knowledge of some data structures, then study them online. There are some very good tutorial websites present today. Do check the following link:

What are the best websites a programmer should visit

Collection of websites for various tutorials

Keep learning and practicing!!!

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Though im not an expert. Here’s wat i’d suggest-

  1. Solve on SPOJ 100+ questions ( easy + medium level ). THis would help to develop instinct for solving.

  2. Solve Codechef Long Archives as the concept tend to be the same and repetitive. Its just some minor changes and observation.

  3. At last, learn and PRACTICE the algorithms. JUst going on learning new algos without any questions is a waste.

  4. For theory- BLOGS, Editorials, Topcoder

Hope this helps!
And at last ENJOY WAT U R DOING!! ENJOY CODING! ;D

NOTE- Atleast this way i managed to get top national rank 81 in Codechef Monthly Contests. Havent been around for a while here though…

Cheers! :slight_smile:

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100 easiest problems on SPOJ? Noooooope.

100 problems on bin-searching, for example? Noooooope again.

SPOJ isn’t good, because it has too large a pool of problems, so it’s hard to choose right.

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TopCoder Tutorials

link1

Link2

link3

Answer from good coders.

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