Rebirth 07: Start adding points from elementary school students

Chapter 306 Teacher Li is not called in vain

On the first day of the competition, everyone was dumbfounded.

The Hua Xia training group encountered the situation they least wanted to see - a change in question type.

All the questions in this competition are interactive and do not focus on algorithms. They are quite different from the questions in the China National Competition and daily training.

Among the four questions on the first day of the competition, only one was a traditional question, but it was also given in an interactive format.

Only one question used the binary search algorithm.

This actually reflects some differences in educational concepts between the East and the West.

In actual applications, it is rare to require offline calculation and processing of given data - that is, the question-setting thinking that is very common in China. Instead, some online interactive algorithms are more needed, and the algorithm content required in actual applications is generally not very high. Relatively speaking, it requires more thinking, pioneering and innovative thinking.

This is often the weak point of Chinese competition students. They are better at some complex "difficult problems" and have outstanding abilities in "how to solve given problems", but they have difficulty in "finding problems".

Li Yan had a deep understanding of this when he was working on order delivery algorithms.

Coincidentally, he has been emphasizing this ability in daily chats in the "Four Kings Leading Three" group and in training discussions over the past month.

So when Team Leader Xiao Liu expressed concern about the changes in question types, Teacher Liu told him a story.

That was the idea that Li Yan proposed during the training - an ultra-high compression algorithm.

But it was a bit difficult for Mr. Liu to explain, because Li Yan's assumptions had too many premises, including the widespread use of smartphones and the rapid development of network infrastructure...

In any case, in Li Yan's imagination, in addition to things related to life such as take-out, taxis, and dining discounts, smartphones will eventually move from the era of text and pictures to the era of videos.

By then, smartphones will not only replace cameras, game consoles, but also televisions and even computers.

"Video? The internet speed isn't sufficient." asked team leader Xiao Liu.

"He said that network infrastructure will definitely not stop at 3G, but that's okay, I think so too," said Teacher Liu.

"Everyone thinks so, but this is just the beginning..."

"So he said, let the future come early."

"What this means," Team Leader Xiao Liu was very perceptive, "is that as long as there is an algorithm that can compress the size of images and videos to the extreme, we can use the current Internet speed to freely view images and videos?"

"Well, he thinks clarity is not the main goal for mobile phone information transmission."

"How come we are talking about this?" Team leader Xiao Liu was very curious.

"Because we talked about the rarely seen data compression type of topic, everyone talked about the significance of compression algorithms. Basically, it is agreed that with the development of hardware in the future, the space will gradually overflow. For personal use at this level, pursuing extreme compression does not make much sense."

"Indeed, we basically all think so." Team leader Xiao Liu nodded, and then his expression changed, "Then Li Yan's approach is very interesting."

"I think so too." Teacher Liu affirmed, "He has given us a difficult question."

"So has he done anything...specific? I mean, has he achieved any results?"

Teacher Liu looked at Team Leader Xiao Liu with surprise, "This thing can be used as a research topic if it is given to Hua University, and he is only in junior high school."

"Oh, yes, there are so many outrageous things happening to this kid, and he is prone to habitual thinking." Xiao Liu smiled, "Then Teacher Liu, why did you suddenly tell me this story?"

"Isn't there an applied data compression question today?"

"Oh my?" Xiao Liu was surprised. "Does this count as a correct guess for him?"

"That's not it." Teacher Liu sighed, "I once thought that he was leading us in the wrong direction by discussing practical applications instead of practicing exercises every day. I didn't expect that..."

The teammates' admiration for Li Yan increased a little bit.

It is no exaggeration to call him Teacher Li with true feelings.

In the eyes of the three sophomore geniuses, Li Yan had long since discarded the prefix adjective "second year of junior high school".

With this level, this mentality, and this appearance, it's stressful to be friends with him. Who dares to call him a junior? The second day of the competition was the same. The questions did not test the algorithms, but focused on practical applications, such as intelligent recognition and data compression.

The two questions testing algorithms are relatively easy, and contestants who can participate in international competitions can basically do it quickly and steadily.

What made the difference in scores was the "practical application thinking". After special training by Li Yan, the Chinese team turned its weakness into an advantage.

Teacher Liu has already emphasized Li Yan's outstanding contribution to the leader on the phone...

Before leaving the examination room, the four of them already knew their results.

All four of them scored above 700 points, so theoretically they should be able to achieve the goal of four gold medals.

Lai Yining came to the right place. A thinking type of player like him is most suitable for this kind of application questions. Unfortunately, he still failed to consider the details and scored 710.

A difficult problem blaster like He Zixiang is at a disadvantage and has not been able to play to his strengths, but his real strength is there after all, and 707 points is very stable.

As for Deng Yudi, he scored 700 points, which was the passing line. Such a good result was just mediocre in the team, and both teachers Liu and Liu were grinning from ear to ear.

The spotlight was on Li Yan, who scored an astonishing 778 points.

He actually had no idea about the score. After all, the difficulty of the national competition was not much lower than that of the international competition, and he almost got full marks in the national competition.

"22 points were deducted..." Li Yan was even quite dissatisfied with this, but there were indeed two questions where he was not very sure that he had reached the optimal solution after finishing them. Not being able to get full marks can only be attributed to his lack of strength.

However, this time he is not just dueling with himself. Li Yan can only be regarded as one of the two star players in this competition, the other one is Klotkovic from Belarus.

Li Yan and the others only found out about this at the exchange meeting the night before.

Because there were so many people discussing the name Klotkovic, and there were a few words "Li Yan" in between, which made Li Yan very interested in Comrade Vic.

Unexpectedly, when Li Yan asked several Nordic players, they were extremely surprised that Li Yan did not know this person.

Then there are all kinds of exaggerated expressions, "real genius", "Xinhua Olympics legend", "the dream of all Xinhua Olympics contestants"...

Then came a sentence with a rhythmic tone: "How come you don't know him?"

Maybe it’s because our network is not very interoperable with yours.

"Ask him what he has done." Deng Yudi said to Li Yan.

Do you think of me as a translator?
This is a very important question. This guy has participated in the international competition for the fifth time... and he won gold medals in the three sessions from 07 to 09. He even won the championship for two consecutive years in 08 and 09.

It is true that Li Yan was the first junior high school student to participate in the competition, but he is not the record holder for the youngest player to participate in an international competition.

Klotkovic won the runner-up in the national programming competition when he was eight years old. In Belarus, this kid can use this award to directly interview and get into any awesome university in Belarus.

At the age of eleven, he joined the Belarusian national team on his own and participated in the 06 international competition, setting a record for the youngest age and winning the silver medal.

Then began the road to cheating in competitions.

This was his fifth year of cheating, and he was recognized by everyone as the king.

However, he himself is very socially anxious and looks exactly like everyone's stereotype of a "programming technical guy".

So he refused to communicate with others...but his achievements were so dazzling that it did not prevent everyone from worshipping him as a true God.

As a result, a young man came this year - at least for now, Li Yan is indeed one year younger than Klotkovic.

"Li Yan, are you confident that you can defeat the Traveler?" asked a Belarusian contestant.

Traveler is his online name, which is quite famous.

Before Li Yan could answer, someone suddenly appeared out of nowhere and added: "Chinese culture emphasizes being low-key and modest. If you ask Li this question, he will be embarrassed."

"No, it's not difficult." Li Yan smiled, "I am confident that I can defeat anyone."

(End of this chapter)