L1-1 What to Expect on the Competition

Competition Format

USA Computing Olympiad consists of 4 ranks: Bronze, Silver, Gold, and Platinum. Contestants have to start with Bronze, and pass enough test cases in order to promote into the higher ranks.

There are a total of four contests in every year, listed below.

• December Contest (Mid December)
• January Contest (Late January)
• February Contest (Late February)
• US Open Contest (Late March)

This means if you passed Bronze in the December contest, you'd get to promote and work on Silver in the January contest. Or, if you did not pass Bronze in December then you'd had another chance to try Bronze in January.

Time Constraints

Each competition spans a total of 3 days, during these 3 days you can choose when to start working on the competition problems.

Once you start, you will have 3 to 5 hours to finish the problems (may vary from contest to contest). There will be a total of 3 problems presented in the competition, with the first being the easiest, and the third being the most difficult. Make sure you allocate enough time for each problem.

Test Cases

Each problem has around 12 test cases to check the correctness of your solution. The actual data that are used in each test case is hidden, so you have to check the edge cases on your own.

You will receive feedback of your program against the test cases, shown in colored box: Green for correct, red for incorrect. Incorrect submissions are further differentiated by the type of issue.

Symbols	Meaning
*	Correct Answer
X	Incorrect Answer
!	Runtime Error/Memory Limit Exceeded
T	Time Limit Exceeded

Rules

• No collaboration with other people. This is an individual competition hence you have to work on the problems on your own.
• You may use online documentations for the libraries and functions that you use in the program.
• You may not use templates that gives you a head start over other contestants.