USACO training is the most prestigious computer science study at the pre-college level. It is an online competition for people and it is held four times annually. The last contest is known as US open and it is harder than the others. Every USACO contest has four divisions namely bronze, silver gold and platinum. This ranks from beginner to advanced. In each of these divisions, there are different problems. Every year after the final contest, finalists are chosen from the top-performing division contestants. The top four finalists are then chosen to represent the US in the IOI. IOI or the international Olympiad in informatics is the premier pre-college computer science level contest in the world.
USACO preparation
If you want to perform well in your USACO exam, it is crucial to prepare appropriately. We will take you through the preparation steps.
Programming
If you are new to programming, you need to learn a programming language. In USACO, you can learn Java, C++ or Python.
USACO fundamentals
The next step after learning a language is to learn USACO topics and solve the related past problems. Solving random problems could be inefficient. A high-quality curriculum where the topics’ scope and their sequence are tuned with respect to the student’s learning is recommended. In this way, you can improve your knowledge and your problem-solving skills. You will start from bronze and take the contests then be promoted to silver after some time. With adequate preparation for the USACO course, most students can get gold division. However, to get gold and above, you will need dedication and talent.
USACO practice
Once you learn the topics in a division, you might not be comfortable with your skills when it comes to problem-solving or wants to practice more for the upcoming contests. It may be better to focus on solving the former problems in your division. It is critical to solve the problems by yourself and look at the solutions and implement them.
Another important thing you can do is to take your practice exams to stimulate a conducive contest environment and see your status in terms of performance and problem-solving skills under pressure. Practice tests are composed of four exams and these exams are similar to the real exams. The last exam is usually harder than the previous ones in the US open.
USACO contests
Taking contests as much as possible is very important. The more contests you take, the more you will gain experience to perform better. After every contest, reviewing your solutions will help you learn a lot from your mistakes. It will be very helpful to check good solutions and see how good your competitors solve problems. After each contest, contest solutions are usually published online. The contest problems are often solved by top competitor’s real-time.
How much time do you have?
When doing your USACO training preparation, it is important to know that each USACO contest has a window starting on Friday till Monday. A problem set in the contest is composed of three problems to be solved in four hours.
