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IOI 2025 Prediction Game

2025-07-25 14:11:22 By Qingyu

According to tradition, we are going to host the IOI 2025 Prediction Game🔮.

Over the next 5 days, you can submit your predictions for the top 8 contestants in the upcoming competition.

You can make your predictions at: https://qoj.ac/voting_game/vote?competition=ioi2025

The deadline to update your prediction is July 30, 2025 at 10 P.M. (UTC +8). That is, the start of the first contest.

Rules:

You need to predict the 1st to 8th place winners. Each contestant can only be nominated once. If the final rankings result in a tie, any position within the tied range will be considered a correct prediction.

  1. For each contestant you nominate who finishes in the top 8, you earn 3 points.
  2. For each contestant you nominate who finishes in the top 16 but not top 8, you earn 2 points.
  3. If you predict the exact rank of a contestant:

    • You receive the 3 base points as above.
    • Additionally, your first exact prediction earns 10 bonus points, the second earns 20 bonus points, the third earns 30, and so on.
  4. If you leave a rank blank (i.e., choose not to make a prediction for that rank), you receive 1 point for that empty slot.

If some contestants are tied for places l to r, predicting them as finishing in any position from l to r counts as correct.

Ranking:

Participants in the Prophet Game will be ranked first by their final score, and then by the time of last edit (earlier edits rank higher in case of a tie).

We will post the final leaderboard after the contest is over.

Famous Contest Series on QOJ

2025-07-23 11:39:06 By Qingyu

There are many well-known contest series created by individual author(s), such as the legendary ASC (Andrew Stankevich Contest) and the Yuhao Du Contest. These contests are renowned for their high-quality problems, and many participants enjoy the challenge of solving every problem in a series.

Since I couldn't find a suitable place to categorize and organize this list, I decided to write this blog instead. I'll continue to update it as new contests are released. Please also DM me if you wish to include your contests here!

Yuhao Du Contest

Gennady Korotkevich (tourist) Contest

300iq Contest

ftiasch (叉姐) Contest

zimpha (Xi Lin) Contest

Claris (Songyang Chen) Contest

Gassa (Ivan Kazmenko) Contest

jiry_2 (Ruyi Ji) Contest

Petr Mitrichev Contest

Andrew Stankevich Contest (ASC)

  • [Andrew Stankevich Contest 44] from Petrozavodsk Summer 2013, later used as XIV Open Cup, Northern Grand Prix. (will be added soon)
  • [Andrew Stankevich Contest 45] from Petrozavodsk Winter 2014, later used as XIV Open Cup, Northern Grand Prix. (will be added soon)
  • [Andrew Stankevich Contest 46] from Petrozavodsk Summer 2014. (will be added soon)
  • Andrew Stankevich Contest 47 Petrozavodsk Winter 2015, later used as XV Open Cup, Northern Grand Prix.
  • Andrew Stankevich Contest 48 from Petrozavodsk Summer 2015.

Moscow IPT Contest

Peking U Contest

Elegia's Collection

See Elegia's Forgotten Hill

Athekatelan's Collection

The 3rd Universal Cup Semifinals : Call for Tasks

2025-06-05 17:09:46 By Qingyu

On behalf of the Universal Cup, I am delighted to invite you to submit your task proposals for The 3rd Universal Cup Semifinals Call for Tasks. The 3rd Universal Cup Semifinals will serve as a qualifying contest to select the teams that will advance to the 3rd Universal Cup Finals, which is expected to be an onsite event in the beginning of 2026. The Semifinals is tentatively scheduled for the end of August, 2025. We anticipate selecting 10-15 high-quality tasks to create a contest experience comparable to the 2nd Universal Cup Finals.

We welcome task submissions across a wide range of difficulty levels and strongly encourage innovative problem ideas. While we cannot guarantee acceptance rates, please be aware that topics such as data structures and combinatorial counting are typically highly competitive and within much lower acceptance rates. We encourage you to consider exploring less common problem types.

If you wish to submit a problem, please send your proposal via email to [email protected]. Your submission should include a task statement, a brief editorial, and a list of conflicting individuals (i.e., anyone who knows any parts of the problem). Test data and standard solutions are not required unless the problem is accepted. For each problem we used, a compensation of 2500 CNY (or 300 USD) will be provided. The submission deadline is July 15, 2025.

If you have any questions or would like to receive updates regarding this event, please feel free to contact us. We eagerly look forward to your creative problem submissions and hope to see you at the 3rd Universal Cup Semifinals!


The 3rd Universal Cup Semifinals - Scientific Committee: Qingyu, jiangly, bulijiojiodibuliduo, quailty

Upgrade of QOJ Judging Server

2025-06-02 15:48:38 By Qingyu

On June 2, 2025, QOJ upgraded its judging server to enhance performance and reliability.

The server's CPU was upgraded from Intel(R) Xeon(R) Platinum 8370C to Intel(R) Xeon(R) Platinum 8570.

To evaluate the impact of this upgrade, we sampled 20 randomly selected accepted submissions (with a runtime of at least 1 second) and compared their performance on the old and new servers.

Submission ID Old Runtime New Runtime Difference
1085643 1016 ms 731 ms -28.05%
1085501 1285 ms 1008 ms -21.56%
1085496 1849 ms 1600 ms -13.47%
1085404 1584 ms 1351ms -14.71%
1085109 2059ms 1320ms -35.89%
1080028 6903ms 6339ms -8.17%
1079903 1369ms 1053ms -23.08%
1079641 1129ms 1064ms -5.76%
1079530 3079ms 2770ms -10.04%
1078786 1353ms 1113ms -17.74%
1078745 2936ms 2641ms -10.05%
1078744 8694ms 5578ms -35.84%
1078736 1898ms 1421ms -25.13%
1078699 1012ms 907ms -10.38%
1078614 2026ms 1708ms -15.70%
1078156 5551ms 4553ms -17.98%
1077728 1663ms 1335ms -19.72%
1077447 3691ms 3542ms -4.04%
1077354 1446ms 1115ms -22.90%
1077195 1616ms 831ms -48.58%

Average: -19.44%; Weighted Average: -19.52%

We will not rejudge previously submitted solutions. As a result, older submissions displayed on the problem statistics page may appear disadvantaged . If you would like to see the updated performance of your past submissions, we recommend resubmitting them.

Additionally, since the new judging server is significantly faster, we may revise the time limits of certain problems—especially if the upgrade inadvertently caused unintended solutions to pass.

MIT

2025-03-16 00:17:38 By Qingyu

写这段文字的时候,青鱼已经连续 42 个小时没有睡觉了,如果写出来的东西很烂,那么对不起。

跟自己斗争了一整天后还是决定找一个地方简单写一点没有营养的文字。

很对不起所有对我有期望的网友们,小青鱼还是没有做到 —— 或者说,已经不知道怎样才能做到。从一开始小青鱼就明白,中国大陆没有身份的申请人想进入 MIT 有怎样的难度。过去的五个月,小青鱼确实已经尽了全力,从自己的文书到去要每一封 letter,以及去到 Boston,去到 Cambridge, 跟 admission office 去线下分享我的成长经历,分享 Universal Cup。然而,小青鱼终究还是太没实力,没有展示出独特的闪光点能让这所学校选择我。

也许在一开始,我对 MIT 的申请就没有任何机会 —— 我来自不入流的高中,没有进入过国家队,也没有其他国际奖项。无论在 MIT 的网友们怎么告诉小青鱼 “青鱼一定能赢的”,小青鱼心中也早就明白 pi day 那一天的结果。小青鱼自己就是一个很奇怪的人类,在过去几年中扮演着自己想要出演的角色,在算法竞赛圈子里尝试构建一个自己的王国。在 NOI 训练期间创建了 QOJ,在高中 take a gap year 去创办 Universal Cup,又或是花了几个月,靠着自己半斤八两的算法竞赛水平,参与命题了一场又一场的比赛。也许是由于自己天生的性格,又或许是因为我接受的家庭与教育经历,小青鱼似乎非常抗拒在某个时期做应该做的事情。小青鱼如果循规蹈矩,也许当时就该抓住机会选择转学到那个地方,在那里参加选拔,最终参加 IOI。可小青鱼如果真这么听话,当年又为什么能够在兖州偷偷去搞算法竞赛,进入到这个圈子呢。也许正因为自己觉得人生就该不务正业,感受那股劲,所以才决定举起长茅,冲向风车。

话说的有点远,小青鱼在过去一年承受的打击实在太大,有好多次没能控制自己,在各种小群内宣泄自己的情绪。也是在去年,小青鱼感到了前所未有的自卑感,发现和我玩在一起的网友们,在我同龄时取得了远远超越我的成就。我是个坏东西,情感能轻松左右我的思想,让我变成了我不喜欢的样子。真的非常感谢所有包容小青鱼走过这一困难时期的朋友们,能让小青鱼没有被 2024 年的多次连击打倒,还能站起来直面自己的恐惧。

只可惜,小青鱼最后还是没有获胜。非常感谢在波士顿期间遇到的所有朋友们,感谢与我进行友好交流的 Alex,Brian,Eva,ETK 老师,丁老师,戴老师,邓老师,谦谦,JV 老师,以及很多很多其他第一次见面的网友们。非常感谢大家对我的认可与鼓励,Boston 这座城市很美丽,小青鱼度过了很开心的两周。只是很抱歉,小青鱼没有能力能够加入你们的 campus,在九月与大家再度相会,能够和你们度过一段同学的时光。

最后,祝贺所有被 Class of 2029 录取的朋友们,祝贺咋克,Eva 老师,wxb 老师,以及其他小青鱼不认识的优秀的同学们。你们的实力远远超过了我,祝愿你们能够在 MIT 成功,也希望小青鱼能够顺利找到自己的学上。

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