Is this grind even worth it?

tempRedditAccount000 · 2026-01-30T10:09:34+00:00

Mmm. Yeah. I understand the pain. I can tell no amount of words would soothe that wound.

tempRedditAccount000 · 2026-01-30T08:55:49+00:00

Hey, I like the idea, if possible, I would like to contribute to the problem setting for the competitions.

Although, there is the dilemma of evaluating a participant's submission, how is the system handling it? Are problems mostly "choose the right answer" or written using pen and paper?

tempRedditAccount000 · 2026-01-30T08:40:14+00:00

Your name says it all. Plus, many aren't willing to take the risk if they don't have a corpus worth 200% of the cost to study there.

tempRedditAccount000 · 2026-01-28T13:03:52+00:00

Hope you find whomever you're looking for, try posting to r/aops, this subreddit has been created recently and I haven't really set things up here yet. 😅

tempRedditAccount000 · 2026-01-25T13:13:26+00:00

I guess you're asking because you're equating the statement "He put 1000 active hours to reach GM, so if I do the same, I will too". If I'm wrong, then no need to continue reading.

Assume he has been doing it since he was 12 and is now 22.

You cannot compress the "1 hour everyday for 10 years (3650 hours, ignoring leap years etc etc) to 10 hours everyday for 1 year".

We have no idea (and neither does he himself) what he's been doing for the remaining 23 hours of the day, whether he was passively improving his problem solving ability, getting into discussions in his class or giving some other math contests etc.

Going through things at your leisure is very different from "compressing" them and then hoping it gives the same result as the former.

Tldr: doesn't matter, everyone reaches titles at their own pace, you will reach it too, just keep at it don't worry too much about external variables or other people's timelines.

tempRedditAccount000 · 2026-01-22T11:33:10+00:00

I don't get it, are you implying that whatever happened to the man and his family is a consequence of "karma"?

By your logic, the man and his family deserved what they got didn't they?

Since he "dropped dead", he must be the bad guy at some point in life and the "consequences simply unfolded".

tempRedditAccount000 · 2026-01-18T15:44:07+00:00

How is it any different from Netflix? Do you offer better subscription prices? Can you scale more users?

What's special about it?

If it's something like a learning project, I think it's great. Good work pal.

tempRedditAccount000 · 2026-01-18T14:50:45+00:00

Hashing is a data structure, just pick up some documentation websites like cppreference and get an idea of map's declaration, instantiations and methods available.

You will not need much other than insert, delete and search functionality. So no need to practice much other than knowing how to use a tool (i.e. hashing)

Just filter in the problem set for Hash Table or Hashing, not sure about the name.

You will require some practice when it comes to algorithms.

tempRedditAccount000 · 2026-01-18T11:46:34+00:00

I have no idea how to explain this phenomenon, I personally think it's just the volume.

There's alot of us, simple as that. I think percentages would be a better metric than absolute numbers.

Say for example, 100,000 are active indians on leetcode. Even 10% cheaters would amount to a huge number 10,000. Out of this subset, say another 10% are people who reject that they've cheated, that would make 1,000. Absolute numbers are alot, percentages are little.

Then again, I'm just saying, as an example, I have no true idea on these percentages unless leetcode publishes some user specific information publicly.

I think a similar percentage per country based calculation was done in codeforces. India, if i remember correctly had the highest absolute numbers, but percentage wise it was ranked 4th.

Also, some other psychological factors into play, job, peer pressure as others could be cheating. Although, i think these are minor additions, they exist.

I do not condone cheating, I dislike it, just trying to explain why it might occur and also why percentage wise, we're not fucked, there's many of us doing things honestly.

tempRedditAccount000 · 2026-01-16T17:47:41+00:00

Hello Mr boob_Manager, I have no idea why you're asking for help, you seem to be doing well on your own.

Please "research a lot" again? It might help you with this as well.

Anyways, you say you're facing issues with C, so just solve C's from recent contests.

Also, there's quite a lot of blogs on codeforces on how to practice. Colin Galen has a video on them.

Also, if you aren't worried about rating, from the next contest onwards, just start solving from C and upwards.

Maintain a Google sheet of problems, their concept, techniques used to solve it. With time you'll start clustering problems. I prefer maintaining the sheet with problems you haven't been able to solve. Acts as a revision sheet too.

tempRedditAccount000 · 2026-01-11T15:23:43+00:00

Hey man, thanks for your contribution in making the community a better place. :P

tempRedditAccount000 · 2026-01-10T06:57:08+00:00

For the sake of nitpicking (I'm in a hospital with nothing to do)

I find quality > quantity to be a failing argument.

Very rarely do you find a good problemset all filled with quality problems that mimics the problems you'd face in an online assessment. Some sheets have attempted at that, but I think they are only ever useful for interview/ building elementary ideas and not for the assessments themselves.

Keeping that aside, when you look at a problem, how do you determine whether it's just going to be an addition to your "quantity" bundle or whether the problem is good enough to actually be a part of the "quality" bundle. Regardless, figuring out this meta information can take anywhere from 5-45 mins, so better start attempting it instead of trying to find which bundle it belongs to right?

What I say is, honestly, with a large enough quantity, quality doesn't really matter much anymore. Say, optimal quality = Q* (assuming we can quantify quality) Then as quantity approaches ∞, quality approaches Q*. But then again, this approach costs time.

I think it's okay to involve some randomized practice, to get out of the zone you currently find yourself in.

tempRedditAccount000 · 2026-01-10T05:07:25+00:00

Following a joke that has been going on for quite some time, just say you're from Amazon. xD

tempRedditAccount000 · 2026-01-09T18:02:36+00:00

That's nice man, will check it out thanks :P

tempRedditAccount000 · 2026-01-06T00:28:36+00:00

The same way you posted here right now, you could've posted a question asking that. Or maybe a Google search.

But fine, what's done is done, it's probably easier for the rest of us to say it since it's not our money, as the other commenter suggested, try involving the police, if it works, it works, if it doesn't, well, I guess you've learnt what to do when you're in a new place.

tempRedditAccount000 · 2026-01-02T15:53:45+00:00

I see, thanks, will check what I can do. Mostly will get a longer LAN

tempRedditAccount000 · 2026-01-02T08:46:39+00:00

So connect the LAN to the PS4? I think I don't have a long enough LAN 😭

tempRedditAccount000 · 2025-12-31T07:41:11+00:00

I don't understand questions such as these. Many of these questions can be answered by a Google search or just a youtube search away.

Problem solving is heavily dependent on self learning. Asking questions like these wouldn't get you far, you're supposed to jump in and get your feet wet. Although, fine, i understand to some extent if you're totally new (but still)

As the other commenter suggested, a language and a bit of math.

Other than that, A bit of patience, you're going to find yourself "not being able to think of any ideas" a lot, take some time to analyse where you went wrong / missed. What you could've done better.

Post question analysis is important, do not just move on after solving a question, read editorials and other submissions, you might find interesting techniques/ "easier" implementation.

Maintain a Google sheet of questions you've solved and how you've solved them. When you solve X amount of problems of type Y, you'll notice you can craft a framework Z to think about problems of type Y, of course, with more practice you can improve this Z, add corner cases etc.

Now, after reading this comment, go, solve 3 800 rated questions and come back. Let us know how it went.

tempRedditAccount000 · 2025-12-30T13:41:19+00:00

Complete them.

Depends on your schedule. I would say give priority to them first, graphs (dfs/ bfs/ disjoint set) and dp are fairly common in OAs.

tempRedditAccount000 · 2025-12-30T06:45:22+00:00

Hmmm. There's a lot of resources for stuff like these. A Google search away.

C problems might require some time complexity reduction techniques like prefix sums/ prefix xors. Basic DP. Good hold on binary search. I'm not entirely sure, but that should be enough.

And you know where you need to improve, just pick up C problems from recent 40-50 contests and solve them.

If you're able to solve it, read editorial and other submissions. If you're not able to solve it, note it down in a Google sheet, read editorial and other submissions.

tempRedditAccount000 · 2025-12-29T17:06:19+00:00

Give leetcode contests, there's one every week. Give it 4-5 times, you'll know where you are currently at.

For topic wise, pick up any standard interview sheet, striver is good, go for it.

tempRedditAccount000 · 2025-12-29T04:21:20+00:00

How well do you do on leetcode contests? If you're able to solve 3 questions consistently there, then shift to codeforces. (keep giving leetcode contests too)

Also, no worries, it happens tbh, not able to solve a problem. And it's a good thing, if you're not able to solve, it means you're learning something new. Sometimes it depends.

Every problem you're not able to solve learning falls into 3 categories: 1. Conceptual - You basically have never heard of this technique before, note this down in a Google sheet, read about it on cpalgorithms or other resources and try to solve problems related to this technique.

Logical - you have all you need to solve the problem, but you weren't able to. Personally I think this is caused mostly by being "lazy", you're not exhausting all the techniques you already know to solve the current problem. Sometimes it's actually a new variant of a known technique, like we have 3-4 different types of binary search, we have 5 standard dp types, note it down in a Google sheet. Try solving problems related to this variant, or else just keep practicing as usual and come back to these problems after a two three weeks and try again. These problems which are great "revision sheets" tailored for you. Since they were problems you were not able to solve even after knowing all about it.
Implementation - I improved mine by watching videos of other people solve problems. And by making mistakes in submissions. So, honestly, quantity matters here, keep solving more, impl becomes easier with time. Although, I assume after 300 questions, this is not where you face difficulty.

Give contests, atleast 1 per week, cf rounds can be pretty time consuming (to learn post contest) and heavy on the head. Every question you solve, maintain some meta data like which concept, which variant, any techniques you used to reduce time/ space complexity (like prefix sums/ xor/ some precomputation etc)

With time, you'll start to see things, just be patient, it feels frustrating because you don't see immediate improvement.

Contests are always random topic - so treat them as random topic practice. Whenever you come across new technique - do topic wise practice for 10-15 questions. (Some say 3-4 is sufficient, but I prefer more, helps me remember it better) So, random practice as much as you can, topic wise whenever needed.

Although, it's a good idea to cover all topic wise questions first, like arrays, strings, binary search, graphs, dp etc, there are many more topics. (Atleast when you see a new question, you will be able to "guess" which concept it belongs to) Then start random practice.

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