~It's already the second year of high school, and my writing still resembles that of an elementary school student~
In the end, I still wrote this travelogue with a reluctant heart.
This is more of a memoir, documenting a weak county, with no guidance, and how I struggled through an OI journey that had no NOIP 1=.
First Encounter#
Living in a small county, my acquaintance with OI was quite unexpected.
It was during elementary school when I joined the Maker club, and somehow I was pulled into learning programming.
At that time, I didn't even know what OI was; I just felt that the header files, main functions, and other concepts taught by the teacher were difficult to understand. I remember they also talked about the method of swapping two variables by creating a temp variable, but unfortunately, I didn't know anything back then.
I participated in the Qingdao City Programming Competition. Surprisingly, I got first place in the county selection, and I was the only one who could go to Qingdao for the exam.
Of course, when I got to Qingdao, I still didn't know anything; I could only blindly code according to the problem statement (I still remember spending a long time debugging due to an error in the while loop condition). In the end, I didn't even know what award I received.
Thus ended my suspected OI journey in elementary school.
In-Depth#
When I entered middle school, it was also to cultivate a hobby, so my parents looked for a programming training institution for me. Initially, I tried a trial class at Aomeng, but since I couldn't understand it, and with recommendations from classmates, I found a programming teacher in the county.
However, there, the teacher seemed to focus more on engineering aspects, and the progress in algorithm knowledge was very slow, with not much practice on problems. It wasn't until the first year of middle school that I learned about CSP. I went to take the CSP-J exam, and unsurprisingly, I didn't pass.
The following year (2021), after studying for another year, I took the CSP-J exam again and finally passed the preliminary round by luck. At that time, there were three students from my school who passed the preliminary round; one was a big shot in the first year, and the other was a big shot in my grade, but they were in the advanced group, %%%. I was also the only one from that programming tutoring institution who passed the preliminary round, and I felt quite happy inside.
After finishing the preliminary round, while looking for answers, I accidentally discovered the Luogu website, realizing that I had registered on Luogu back in 2020. It was like getting to know Luogu again.
In the second year of middle school, during the National Day holiday, I spent almost every day at the programming institution, and I first realized that what I needed to learn was Informatics Olympiad, and I also learned for the first time that knowing just the basic syntax was not enough to study Informatics Olympiad. So, I started practicing problems on the YBT website.
Before I knew it, I reached the semi-finals and went to Shandong Foreign Language School to participate. I didn't know how to solve any of the problems, but under a strategy of brute force, I managed to score 247 points (a good score) and received a 1= award.
After winning the first prize, I was very happy; that year, all three students from our school who participated in the exam also won first prizes, two in the beginner group and one in the advanced group.
From @W_SUN's memoir:
Our school was quite prominent, and because of the big shots in the second year who achieved first place in both Group J and Group S, our school received the title of Gold Medal School, which also brought us a lot of publicity.
However, I clearly didn't know what competitions were at that time, nor did I have any in-depth reflections. I still treated ~Informatics Olympiad~ programming as just a hobby, nothing more.
What happened next? I realized I needed to learn algorithms, so I frantically supplemented my algorithm knowledge, bought the algorithm improvement course from AcWing, and searched for algorithm knowledge on Bilibili... But this led me into another misconception, only learning the surface of algorithms without applying them deeply.
Confusion#
The following year was an incredibly confusing year. Without a teacher to provide professional guidance, I only skimmed the surface of algorithms, understanding their principles and solving some basic problems, nothing more.
During the winter vacation from the second to the third year of middle school, I participated in SDSC, where I saw many big shots from AU and AG, filled with admiration, and I also wanted to be able to get a recommendation through competitions.
Entering the third year of middle school, I arrogantly signed up for CSP-S, but it dealt me a heavy blow, missing the preliminary round by half a point.
Then I began to give up. Throughout the third year of middle school, after the preliminary round, I hardly touched OI at all and devoted myself entirely to WHK. However, I did achieve some results and got into the key class at the county level.
Trying My Best#
During the summer vacation after the high school entrance examination, I participated in the QBXT training camp, an algorithm improvement course. The initial content was relatively easy to understand, but later it felt increasingly difficult. Nevertheless, I tried my best to keep up, and in the end, I gained a lot of new insights into many problems.
Entering high school, I also better understood what competitions were all about. At that time, I set a goal to achieve NOIP 1= in the first year.
In the preliminary round of the first year, scoring high in Group S gave me a lot of confidence. I took all three evening self-study classes off to practice in the computer room. What happened? I had a fever before the CSP-S exam, scored 120 points, and passed NOIP with 1= but only brute-forced the rest, scoring 150 points, just 3 points short of getting first place. This means that in the last year when NOIP 1= was relatively easy to achieve, I still didn't get 1=.
Thus ended my OI journey in the first year of high school.
Repeating the same mistake, after finishing NOIP, I hardly did any OI throughout the entire first year of high school. This was partly due to my academic pressure and also my own avoidance and laziness, not wanting to think back on memories. ~Now that I think about it, if I had continued studying OI in the second semester of the first year, would I have gotten 1= this year?~
Unfortunately, there are no "what ifs."
Final Chapter#
Entering the second year of high school, it was also the last opportunity to engage in OI. However, this time, the training conditions were not as good as in the first year, and my mindset was not as good either. The only advantage was that my thinking was a bit more flexible, and my goals were clearer.
I also smoothly passed the CSP-S preliminary round.
During the problem-solving process, I gradually identified my shortcomings; I found it very difficult to tackle problems with higher cognitive difficulty. So, I focused on strengthening practice in this area.
For the CSP-S semi-finals, thanks to CCF's easy T1+T2, I achieved an inflated score of 220 points.
Thus, I regained some confidence in OI. However, the subsequent preparation was focused on quickly solving T1 in the exam and seriously studying T2.
This led to a situation during the NOIP exam where, facing a more challenging T1, I panicked and ultimately did not brute-force T3 and T4, resulting in a regrettable exit with 140 points.
Summary#
The journey through OI has brought me quite a few rewards.
Not being able to achieve the long-desired 1= seems to be fate. How can life be without regrets?
The competition careers of OIers often begin with a NOIP and mostly end with a NOIP, as if a cycle is continuously being replayed.
If this NOIP is your starting point, then I wish your OI journey is as splendid as summer flowers.
If this NOIP is your endpoint, then I wish your OI memories are as brilliant as the stars.
Quoted from @W_SUN:
I hope all OIers who are striving and fighting achieve their ideal results.
Just like when I first encountered OI, there is a beginning and an end. Goodbye, OI.
I hope we can all keep our dreams alive and strive forward! Goodbye, OI.