Contest Format

Contest Format

A mock contest is not a harder problem set — it is a different activity. The skills being trained are allocation and recovery, not recognition alone.

Rules for both contests below

1. Read all problems first (10 minutes). Write one line per problem: guessed family + confidence.
2. Secure the A-problems before touching anything else. Two solved A-problems plus a failed C beats a heroic partial C and a broken A.
3. One C-problem at a time. If you stall past your self-imposed limit (the timed lesson suggested 45 minutes), switch — or switch to partial- credit thinking on the same problem.
4. Self-timed, honestly. The platform cannot enforce a wall clock here — that limitation is documented in the course materials. Set a real timer; the discipline only works if the clock is real.

Scoring yourself

• Solved A + B within an hour: on pace for a provincial-tier mock.
• Solved A only: fine — but write down why B stalled (reading? algorithm? implementation?). That reason repeats across contests.
• The checkpoint is the Final Simulation: run it as one sitting.