USACO Gold Part I

Gold level, in a sense, is the last step of USACO competition. Once student passes Gold level and becomes a Platinum level contestant, value of participation in the USACO contests increases exponentially. Needless to say it is proportionally challenging. It is recommended to dedicate at least two years for Gold training.

One must master a variety of advanced algorithms to pass this level. Star League Gold curriculum is twofold: Foundations courses (Part I and Part II) and Problem Solving. Foundations courses teaches the necessary algorithms. Although the course titles appear to be sequential, the Part I and Part II courses may be taken in either order. 

The class is language agnostic. Instructors use pseudo language when necessary to explain programming concepts. However, they are able to help both Java and C++ users when they need help. They also present necessary syntax and language constructs in Both Java and C++ when necessary.

One need not pass the Silver contest in order to take this course. However, student must have completed Silver training (Silver Part I, II, PS, and Mini Camp) to take this class by having solved all of the exercises and problems in the Silver courses.

Each class features lecture teaching the topic of the day and several past USACO problems or related exercise questions. After the presentation of a problem instructor demonstrates how to identify the need to use the content of the day's lecture and steers the students towards an acceptable solution through critical questions and hints. At the end the instructor wraps up the discussion and provides a clear solution that demonstrates the usefulness of the day's topic. Students are expected to implement their solution or the presented solution during the Practice time.

During the Practice hours of the day students will get individual help, such as for debugging, to implement the solutions. They will also be able to ask and get clarification about any challenging concepts they encounter during their coding practice.