Difference between CookOff and LunchTime?

I have participated in the past few Long Contests and started off with the Short contest this month but unfortunately it was unrated. With the August Lunchtime contest starting tomorrow, I would like to know the difference between the two Short Contests i.e., Cook Off and Lunchtime? All I know is 3 hours will be given to solve 4 problems. What will be the difficulty level of questions. Is the difficulty level similar to Long contest?

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Lunch time is an IOI style contest. This means that the problems will be partially graded. You will get score for passing certain test data. And the test cases which you have failed will also be visible on your submission page.

Lunchtime is primarily for school participation though anyone can take part but the school ranking will be calculated separately for school students. The school students will be identified by the institution that they have entered in their profile.

Whereas cook off is not partially graded.You must pass all the test cases to get your answer accepted. Of course the level of cook off is a bit high as compared to lunchtime. Long questions tests various ability of the participants, So both lunch time and cook off are in a way different from long contests… But a beginner, whoever it may be, MUST definitely try hands on lunch time…

you can practice previous lunchtime questions to get more familiar with the level of the contest…

Keep going… Happy Coding…!!!

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For rankings, you can refer to Ranking Mechanisms | CodeChef

For type of problems asked in various type of contests and their difficulty, you can refer to Guidelines | CodeChef

Since lunchtime are based on IOI style, you can search for some details on the syllabus on google. Some more discussions regarding this can be found on Problems with Lunchtime Questions - general - CodeChef Discuss and Promblems of Lunchtimes - general - CodeChef Discuss

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