How many people are doing USACO?

[ccontest]

How many people in Comp Sci forum participate in USACO contest?

[A.J]

I have been participating in the USACO monthly contests since grade 10 (so, that would be for 3 years now). Being in university, I won't be ranked amongst the other highschool students. Having said that, I don't participate anymore, but I merely take a look at the questions after the contest (not because I care about rankings that much, but merely because I am a bit busy with other work).

[antybash]

I've been doing usaco for a year now. Hopefully, if I manage to get to the Gold contest (silver now) in the next few months, I might have a decent chance on CCC. Although I'm not too sure how much the monthly contests help with prepping for CCC, but it'll be a win for me though!

How about you, ccontest? Where are you at (usaco-wise) right now?

[bbi5291]

Historically, those Woburn students who qualified to the GOLD division in USACO were more or less the same ones who were invited to stage 2 of the CCC. If you can handle the SILVER contest, you shouldn't find CCC stage 1 too difficult.

[A.J]

Well, you basically write the monthly contests for the purpose of learning new concepts and algorithms, so in that way it is helpful.

[ccontest]

I am currently in USACO Gold Division (luckily i managed to solve the two problems in the qualification exam), but I am having

trouble solving some current gold problems.

I read some of the past contest editorials, and realized there were some algorithms and data structures that I do not know (Max Flow, BIT, suffix tree, etc.)

What are some of the algorithms & data structures that I would need to know to solve gold division problems?

I know some basic algorithms and data structures, but that is it.


Also, any tip on how to be better at dynamic programming would be appreiciated.


Thank you!

[A.J]

Well, in the past gold problems tend to be pretty hard. The qualification is actually a lot easier than the actual contests (I would say that the gold qualification contest was about the level of silver questions). I suggest you work through the USACO training pages to learn about new algorithms. Also, even if you are in Gold, I find it helpful to take a look at the silver questions too after the contest is over, to make sure that you can do them and to learn from them.

As for problems requiring DP, well spotting them is probably the easiest part of it. Even though there are standard algorithms, like the Knapsack problem, the gold contest usually tests the coder's ability to come up with a DP algorithm from scratch.

I guess experience plays a huge part in becoming better at coding/certain algorithms, so I once again advise you to solve problems on some of the online judges like SPOJ, train at the USACO training pages and just keep writing the contests and keep learning from them.

[bbi5291]

Shameless self-promotion: check out the PEG Judge.

[ccontest]

Thank you, I'll keep in mind!