ZCO problems:
Q1. Given an array S and a number T, find the number of solutions for S[ i ]+S[j]+S[k]+S[l]=T, where i<j<k<l. N<=5000.
Q2. In a 2D plane (NxM), there are lasers and boxes. Every laser travels horizontally and when it encounter a black box, it stops and if it encounters two white boxes it stops. You are given the location of these boxes and the rest are initial locations of lasers. Find the sum of all the distances travelled by the lasers. n,m<=10^6 and b,w<=10^5.
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Apparently, we all got selected, like last year.
Can anyone post their solutions for reference?
Totally awful and horrible. I changed 13 PCs because of crashing of dev cpp and session expired error. Even server responded only for first problem TWICE during whole 3 hour contest and then dev cpp started giving errors like permission denied while testing locally on top of that server started giving errors like XYZ is not valid command or batch file. When I clicked on debug mode to use gdb dev cpp crashed EVERYTIME
The experience I had was really unexpected. I used java for the exam. My centre was Cochin. As you all know there is no IDE for java and you can’t test your code against your own inputs. So the debugging was really hard. In fact, this was not the big deal!
Hardware Issues:
Most of the students in my centre had to switch between computers twice and many had to switch multiple times. Some keys in the keyboard didn’t work. When I asked them about this, they tried connecting another keyboard, but the tcs ion platform automatically shut down saying that it detected another hardware. So I had to tolerate my keyboard. These things significantly reduced the time I got to program.
Problems in problems:
I don’t whether this happened only to those who use java. The example input and output given to the problems were different than the specified input. I mean, in the second question,
It says that the input will consist of only one line with 4 + 2*(w+b) space seperated integers. But the example input were like
n m w b
then w lines saying the position of w
then b lines saying the position of b
I spend a lot of time on this. At last I had to use Scanner with nextInt() method to read input as I didn’t knew how the input were given. I tried in both ways using BufferedReader and StringTokenizer. But it didn’t work and raised NoSuchElement exception. As you all know nextInt() method will increase running time.
Experience
Overall a very bad experience. I didn’t get any time to properly solve first problem. I request all of my friends who had similar experience to send email to ICO co-ordinator and IARCS. Request them to reschedule ZCO again or to let everyone who ZCO participate in INOI.
I got an email stating
Thanks for reporting the problems at Cochin. There were also other
problems at other centres. We will directly allow all ZCO candidates
present on Sunday to write INOI in January. A formal notification
will be sent out as soon as we receive the attendance lists from TCS.
I had to change my working computer 4 times. I submitted my code for the third subtask of the second problem and then the system crashed. I got a blue screen of death. After changing my system, I wrote my solution for the first problem, and just when I submitted, I was locked out and my session ‘expired’. Had to change my PC again. Also, the code I wrote didn’t get submitted and there was not much time left to rewrite the whole thing. The PC changing process also ate away at my time. I was just standing idly for at least half an hour. I don’t understand how TCS ION hasn’t been fixed yet after so many years of such situations.
ZCO Delhi was a very bad experience. Firstly the keyboard didn’t work and I don’t even remember how many times devc++ crashed and i restarted the system. Even the people there gave up as the they were not able to fix it. If they fix something another bug arises like problem in compilation, server paused,etc.
I don’t know what they will do and why don’t they upgrade. What’s the point of having ZCO like this?
Well guys do you know whom to mail our problems to and how will we be notified if we are selected?
And btw it was a HORRIBLE experience for me too. I gave my exam at kolkata.
I’ve had a bad experience at Kolkata as well.
Aside from all the problems others have mentioned, whenever I clicked the ‘Submit Code’ button, I got the following error message:
'iONOAP' is not recognized as an internal or external command, operable program, or batch file"
which makes me wonder if my submissions have gone through properly. ```I gave the ZCO in Java language. The code did compile but when I clicked on “Submit code” button, the platform isn’t just ready to accept my submission. What do you all think? Shall we all be selected for the INOI exam.
This was the first time that I was giving any ZCO, And let me explain-
I would like to inform you that the experience of giving my first ZCO exam was pretty much horrible! Randomly I was disconnected after every 15 to 20 minutes.
Now and then my session used to expire! We need to change our computers every-time whenever something happened, thus we had to leave our code in debugger! Oh, Debugger, what can I say about Dev-C++, All participants were not even able to give the Input and see the output as the output window was showing itself for micro seconds and closing automatically!
I don`t know about what happened in other cities, but in lucknow, this was the condition of each and every participants. After all this how we are supposed to solve any prolem ? Even participants are talking about it on various forums!
Congratulations to all the ZCO participants I stated my problems to Madhavan Mukund sir and got reply just now
“Thanks for reporting the problems at Chandigarh. There were also
other problems at other centres. We will directly allow all ZCO
candidates present on Sunday to write INOI in January. A formal
notification will be sent out as soon as we receive the attendance
lists from TCS.”
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Yup, I got it too. That`s awesome as I was only able to solve 2 subtasks of first and 2 subtasks of second problem.
And yes we are all selected for INOI and if given a chance I would surely like to kick the butts of the technical stuff , looks like they didnt cared for us , I suggested a solution to that console problem that to use the normal command line to execute the program so that we can test it properly but who cares , they dont even seem to listen me and yes why DevCpp? Any linux distro with text editor can do a better job than it , I also sat from Kolkata but luckily my computer neither hanged nor got expired , hush but around me there was storm going on of shifting pcs , ehhh.
Cheers guys, I mailed Dr. Madhavan about the issues I faced.This is the reply I received:
“Thanks for reporting the problems at Chennai. There were also other
problems at other centres. We will directly allow all ZCO candidates
present on Sunday to write INOI in January. A formal notification
will be sent out as soon as we receive the attendance lists from TCS.”
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Congrats to all who are gave ZCO, you are probably directly selected for INOI. This might be good for ZCO people but is unfair for ZIO people(me being as one of them).
A collective forum is created on Quora here: link text
Please answers to this question as it will be looked into by IARCS and Prof. Madahavan Mukund personally.
Upvote/Thumbs Up this post to bring it on the front page!
I gave ZCO at the Lucknow center and I’ve got one word for the whole experience, TERRIBLE!
You should know this before you go ahead: I live in bareilly and had to travel 250km to attend ZCO at Lucknow center, which is the nearest.
Now let me point out the things(in order they happened):
- Reporting time was 1PM and every kid reached their at that time. However no one was even allowed to get inside the campus until it was 1:50PM. Everyone had to stand outside in scorching weather.
- When we got inside at 1:50PM, we hope the exam would finally start but it didn’t! There were issued with every system and the connectivity was poor (I’m assuming this because they were on phone saying that the internet isn’t working and other similar phrases).
- The first PC that I was alloted had a malfunctioning Keyboard and the “#” key won’t work, including many others. So they replaced the keyboard but here’s the thing, my 10 min practice session’s time wasn’t paused. When around 2 min were left in practice session, I realized that the debugger isn’t working the way it should. It won’t even compile and run the program. That black window won’t even appear.
- They now replaced my system and boom, my practice session was over and the 180min time already started. 10 more minutes went by and I finally had a system with partly working keyboard and okayish debugger. But wait, it doesn’t end here.
- Countless number of times, the session expired. Other half of the times the debugger won’t even stop for the user input. (I even tried a basic input output program to confirm this issue). And do remember my time was flowing.
In all, I would say this was very unfair! Moreover when there was the review page, where we would give ratings, the instructor himself clicked on next, thus not even allowing me give genuine ratings.
This was a very unfair and poorly organized exam. I don’t understand how am I even supposed to work on the problems when the system isn’t okay.
I request you to write a mail to IARCS and let them know that you had issues with the system on the test day!
The systems were somewhat unexpectedly horrible. Does anyone have a linear solution to the problems, my solution had polynomial complexity?
The first question in the ZCO is almost the same as SUMFOUR on Spoj. And if anyone came to the INOI workshop, this question is also very much similar to Quadra.
I gave ZCO 2017 in Java,in Kolkata. The experience was nightmarish!
-
Firstly, the system was horrible.
The compiler took about 45 SECONDS to compile and it took more than DOUBLE that time to submit the code. This
was really unacceptable as it usually takes a fraction of a second to compile our code and run it in any platform. So, so much time to only know whether the code has any errors with no arrangement whatsoever to debug it (for Java users). -
Moreover we were not allowed to copy-paste our code. This meant re-typing the same code twice for each problem. GREAT GOING! Also, as coders, we know that often our code contains lengthy parts which need to be typed more than once. So, we had to re-type the things again and again meaninglessly. So much for fast and “competitive” programming!
3)Now, lastly and MOST IMPORTANTLY.
The damn system didn’t work!
Even after successful compilation, all of us got the same error message : "This is not an internally or externally recognized error. ‘Java.is’ "
I mean what does that even mean??
Everything we tried, all changes we made (damn the slow submition system too), it would always show the same thing. It made us helpless. The invigilators were completely ignorant. Already it was tough since we did not have the luxury of a debugger and had been pampered by codechef’s brilliant and easy-to-use system. But we had been told about this before-hand. We were ready to face this. However, the system failure made us completely helpless!
Such was not expected by a machinery provided by the IARCS.
I had entered the hall with a lot of belief and expectations. The problems were quite easy as compared to some of the past year problems. Even faced the fact that it was cold, I was nervous, and the invigilators were not allowing us to visit the washroom (till the last 30 minutes). Found the solutions, somehow typed in 5 out of 6 subtasks and returned home dejected and almost in tears.
I hope I get to give the INOI.