How can I increase my rating. I have participated in rating contest multiple times (27 contests). and solved around 120 problems only on Codechef. Earlier I was on 2 star, but due to some important work I left a contest in mid, then they rated me with 1 star. I have given multiple contest I want to know am I doing something wrong because around 3 months have been done and I am still on 1 star.
I am in the same boat as you. New to cp, but I probably have a much deeper programming background. From my research…
high ranks advice the following mentality:
- don’t burn yourself out
- practice in a challenging but fun/motivating way
- value learning essential topics over everything else (those essential to your rating)
- essential topics for you (low 2* rating) can be found here: Jump from 2 to 3 stars | CodeChef
- optional topics, like game theory, can be learned or skipped. Only learn it if it is fun for you
- solve random problems around and above your rating
- upsolve previous contests
- try to improve your skill rather than your rating and don’t get discouraged by short-term fluctuations. Skill changes take month to be seen in your rating-graph
- roadmaps don’t work because they are not personalized. But feel free to use them to build your own plan.
- Mix stuff up and make sure you don’t force yourself into doing stuff you hate
- don’t learn useless algorithms. Rather go solve random problems
Material for self-learning - Guided:
- All learning courses - CodeChef (codeforces difficulty 800 ~ 1700)
- Courses - Codeforces (codeforces EDU section - difficulty 1200 ~ 2000)
- Contests - Codeforces (virtual Educational Codeforces contests - codeforces difficulty 1000~2200 )
Material for self-learning - Mashup lists:
- https://c2-ladders.com/ (recommended problem mashup - codeforces difficulty 800~3500)
- A2OJ Ladders (problem mashup 2 - codeforces difficulty 800~2200)
- Releasing my private problems lists for ICPC/IOI/Online training - Codeforces (problem mashup 3 - codeforces difficulty 1400~3500)
Note: codeforces EDU section is in my opinion essential to truly learn binary search.
Note: c2-ladders vs a2oj. A2oj is older. In the past codeforces was more heavily algorithm-focused, meaning A2oj is a learning source which gives you problems more focused on certain topic. c2-ladders will give your problems whose solutions are more ad-hoc based. I would value c2-ladders higher.
Note: there are more sources but those mentioned above are those I plan on using. Partly because they fit me but especially because I think they are extremely awesome.
Thanks for guiding me man, Right Now I am on 2 star and I am learning through Jump from 2 star to 3 star material. After completeing this I will jump to codeforce articles and problem, But the course that you suggest me is no more on codeforce.
it is, you need to be logged in though: Courses - Codeforces
I didn’t do any cp in recent months, but if I start again, I will use this site: AtCoder Problems
Its basically a mesh up for atcoder contest problems, which I slightly prefer over codeforces problems.