FAQs

Q: Is ANCO held online?

A: Yes, ANCO is held online on this website's built-in contest platform.

Q: Is there a "submit" button for this contest?

A: No, the contest will be submitted automatically after 4 hours. You do not have to keep the site open for the entire 4-hour duration, though; all submissions will be saved, even when the site is closed.

Q: Does the contest timer tick down even when the contest page is closed?

A: Yes. Essentially, once the 4-hour timer starts counting down, it does not stop, no matter what.

Q: How does scoring work?

A: Of the 3 problems in the contest, each problem will be worth exactly 333 points. Your score per question will be calculated like this:

((# of test cases you got correct - # of sample test cases) / (# of total test cases - # of sample test cases)) * 333

with the above result rounded to the nearest whole number.

For example, if a problem has a total of 20 test cases, with 1 of them being a sample case, and you got 15 test cases right (including the sample test case), your score for that problem would be ((15-1)/(20-1))*333 = (14/19)*333 = 245.37 = 245 points.

Q: In terms of scoring, is a problem's score based on the submission that acquired the most points, or solely based off of the most recent submission (like USACO)?

A: A problem's score is based off of the submission that acquired the most points. For example, if a person submits a code that gets 200 points but then submits a code that gets 150 points, the person will still get 200 points for that problem. So, this will not be like USACO where only the score of the most recent submission is kept.

Q: Do the test case inputs/outputs on ANCO come from a file, or is it just standard input/output?

A: ANCO does inputs/outputs using standard input/output (stdin/stdout). Thus, to obtain input, you would need to use input() in Python, cin in C++, and Scanner/BufferedReader in Java, and to output the answer, you would need to use print() in Python, cout in C++, and System.out.println in Java.

Q: Which competitive programming judge does ANCO use?

A: We use Judge0, hosted on a VPS (Virtual Private Server) called Servercheap. Our VPS has plenty of RAM and plenty of vCPUs, so there will be no need to worry about your code waiting in endless queues.

Q: Are you sure this site won't just break in the middle of a contest?

A: Yes, we are sure. Our admins have ran a "test contest" that test how well the website's server can handle quick and simultaneous submissions, and the server survived without a problem. So you guys can rest easy. :)

Q: How can I contact ANCO?

A: You can contact ANCO by sending an email to ancocodingcontest@gmail.com.