What should I do before asking for help?

[Shunzo_Hida]

Does anybody have any advice for practicing problems?
When I can’t make any progress on a problem, should I first look at the solution, look at the test data, or ask for help? or any other suggestions you might have

[jessechoe10]

I would look at part of the solution (this is personally my preference). Remember to not read the full solution lol (just quickly glance at a specific observation or something that you weren’t able to think of).

[Shunzo_Hida]

Regarding debugging help, if my solution matches the official solution in concept but I am not getting all testcases correct even though I cannot find a testcase myself that my code fails on, can I ask for help, or should I first download the usaco testcases and look at the specific one it’s failing on? Thanks!

[caoash]

How to ask for help on a problem

Here are some general guidelines for how to effectively ask for help on the Forum: Basic Requirements Include a link to the problem. For problems that that can be found within the guide, just include the internal Guide URL (ex. Circular Barn). Format your post appropriately (especially language-specific code blocks such as the following). // cpp code here ... int main() { } If you don’t understand the problem solution conceptually: These are great questions to ask in the Forum! Make su…