Sincere help required! Kindly help guys.

Each year IARCS organizes a series of competitive exams based on computing languages. I have great passion for computers and hence it is natural that I was attracted towards it.

Anyways, to cut the long story short, I was selected in ZCO 2010 and I have qualified for INOI 2010. If anyone wants more info on the competitions, check it out here-->
http://www.iarcs.org.in/inoi/current.php#zco2010

Of the 2 problems asked, I was able to solve one. Maybe, the other required the knowledge of trees which I didnt have. Anyways, I want to leave no stones unturned and get myself prepared nicely for the INOI and I'll be needing your help guys.

Following are two past year papers of INOI:-

http://www.iarcs.org.in/inoi/2008/in...008-qpaper.pdf
http://www.iarcs.org.in/inoi/2009/in...009-qpaper.pdf

Can you please, pleaseeeeeeeeee go through the question papers and give me the list of topics which I shall prepare?

Any help would be greatllyyyyyyyy appreciated. The exam would be on 24th Jan. So, I have approximately one month. I can study a lot during this time. Please, please help me.

Thanks in advance.

The links to the PDF's are broken.

Oh..Are they?...Really sorry for that.

Here are another links:-

http://rapidshare.com/files/32747390...008-qpaper.pdf
http://rapidshare.com/files/32747480...009-qpaper.pdf

I took a quick glance at the 2009 questions.

The first is a variation of bin packing.
The second is probably easiest using A* or Dijkstra's algorithm. Its a simple pathfinding problem.
Didn't look past that as I think i would be struggling for time a bit after the first two questions, but i'm not a pro.

@Russco

So, what do you suggest? What shall I prepare?

I dont know i only looked at two questions.

If you have a good knowledge of C++, algorithms, data structures and a reasonable level of intelligence and motivation then you should be fine.

Research any areas you feel weak in. You mentioned you have no knowledge of tree structures. You should have a fair knowledge at least of A* and dijkstra's algorithm. These will be useful in any sort of pathfinding based on cost type question. Maybe get an algorithms book such as those by Robert Sedgewick and practice every data structure/algorithm shown until you are intimately familiar with both the algos and their applicability. Try to solve old question papers. Thats probably the best way to prepare.

Pardon my ignorance but what is A*?

Quote:

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Originally Posted by Nikhar

Pardon my ignorance but what is A*?

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The name of a graph search algorithm.

Ok..thanks for the replies guys. Any more responses would be appreciated.

Questions for you are plenty. One I can think up is the complexity of some known algorithm i.e sorting, searching... or which one has been proved slowest/fastest among the others ?Admittedly I don't know them myself as I find them to be out of the 'practicality' and that they are just so far as a single mouse click away on this net to not learn by memory.
If I were your supervisor: ( I would prepare a long long list of problems from easy to hard and very hard that no matter how much you try, you will never be able to finish all the problems and that I would mix them altother without any particular order then you will have to solve them one by one, I collect also your scatch papers and check if your brainstorm ideas look neat. In a hurry you will show your untidiness, messy characteristic, a possible 'lawless' disobedience, your attitude towards your readers, and above all its to evaluate your behaviors. Rarely have I seen any toppers that are messier than the ill-mannered boys. Why you are selected is on my mind. People tend to buy a software for some specific needs not for fun in order to waste their money. When I would want to sell my software I would definitely base my 'requests' on customers or the market need. I can't produce a software to then keep it in the warehouse. It is certain I also have some prosaic concerns over this problem as I am the owner and because I don't want my warehouse to store so many unsellable soft products. I can sell them off with cheapest prices; I can offer more marketing strategies, incentive programs for the buyers i.e buy one get two/three, big win via cast drawn etc, but all these underlying backbone is only to mean that finding a customer for my products is not easy at all. I have yet to mention the competitiveness among sellers of the same products. This complexity of the business sellers and buyers can be mapped via functions and networks when you learn graph theories; the best path to delivering a product to a customer is supposed to mean the shortest path problem, and as a manager or one that is resposible for such tasks, you have to know how to schedule - coordinate the work correctly in time with less energy and money spent.
I don't like graph theories because I don't know much about them, once I was in school I also read some first chapters (-to distinguish from 'some books') of the graph books and fell sleepy right after a few hours: too many definitions and things to memorize. But that's how I understand about the problem mapping.