A Typical ICPC Styled Contest

Unlike Code Jam or Hackercup, ICPC is a team competition. Each team typically have 3 members, and each team has access to only 1 computer during a contest. They will have to write programs solve 10 to 14 problems within a 5 hours-long contest. Usually the judge system allows you to solve problems using various programming languages such as C++ and Java. In the ICPC world finals, the allowed programming languages are C++17, Java, Python3 and Kotlin.

Scoring

A problem is solved when it is accepted by the judges. There is no partial score in a ICPC contest. The more problems your team solve, the higher rank your team is placed. For each problem your team solved, there is an associated penalty, calculated by adding the number of minutes from the beginning of the contest until a correct solution is submitted, along with the number of incorrect attempts multiplied by 20.

Thus, the teams are ranked first by the higher number of solved problems, and then the lower total penalty from each solved problems.

Submission Feedbacks

For each problem you submit, your program will be tested on different test cases. In most of the ICPC style contests, you solved the problem if all test cases are passed. In this case you'll see Accepted. Otherwise, your program fails to produce correct output in time on some test cases. In this situation, you will only be able to see very brief message such as Wrong Answer or Runtime Error. You team will have to debug on your own.