usaco-guide/content/Syllabus.md

id	title	author
syllabus	Syllabus	Benjamin Qi

(outdated)

Below, we've compiled some of the main topics for each division.

This USACO guide will try to cover all of these topics. Note that USACO contest problems are not limited to just these topics, though most of them should fall into one of the catgories listed below.

Other Resources

• USACO -> CPH Topics
• Riya's website
• IOI Syllabus
• Darren's book
• Division-Specific Categorization
• Silver Categorization

Intro

• Introduction to Competitive Programming
  • Contest Format
  • Choosing a Language
  • Practicing and Debugging
  • Contest Strategies
• Prerequisites
• Introductory Problems
• Standard Containers Intro

Bronze

• Simulation (just do what statement tells you to do)
  • ex. The Lost Cow
• Complete Search
  • ex. Tracing
• Rectangle Geometry
  • ex. Billboard
• "Observation"
  • basically everything else (requires more thought)
  • ex. Mad Scientist

Silver

• Greedy
  • ex. Lemonade Stand
• Standard Containers
  • ex. Convention II
• Sorting
  • ex. Counting Haybales
• Binary Search (BinSearch)
  • ex. Convention
• Two Pointers (2P)
  • ex. Diamond Collector
• Prefix Sums (Psum)
  • ex. Breed Counting
• DFS
  • ex. Switching on the Lights
  • Occasionally, graph problems appear in bronze ...

Gold

• Dynamic Programming (DP)
  • ex. Time is Mooney
• Breadth First Search (BFS)
  • ex. Cow Navigation
• Shortest Path (SP)
  • ex. Milk Pumping
• Minimum Spanning Tree (MST) & Disjoint Set Union (DSU)
  • ex. Fencedin
• Topological Sort (TopoSort)
  • ex. Timeline
• Range Sum Queries with Point Updates
  • ex. Haircut
• Number Theory
  • ex. Cow Poetry
• Hashing (NOT COMMON)
  • ex. Cownomics
• Combinatorics (NOT COMMON)
  • Principle of Inclusion and Exclusion (PIE)
  • ex. Cowpatibility
• Sliding Window (NOT COMMON)
  • ex. Haybale Feast

Platinum

Just a sampling of the many possible topics.

• Trees
  • Lowest Common Ancestor (LCA)
    • mostly platinum but may appear in gold as well
    • ex. cowland
  • Heavy-Light Decomposition (HLD)
  • Tree Diameter
• Range Queries
  • Segment Tree
    • possibly useful for gold
  • Static Array Queries
  • 2D
• Bitset
  • ex. Lots of Triangles
• Slope Trick
  • ex. Landscaping
• Fracturing Search
  • ex. Robotic Cow Herd
• Geometry
  • Convex Hull
  • ignoring Cow Steeplechase II (Silver) ...