Round Structure
Each online and onsite round of competition consists of three phases: the Coding Phase, Challenge Phase, and System Testing Phase. (Note: the format of these competition rounds is similar to the format of the Single Round Matches.)
The Coding Phase is a timed event where all contestants are presented with the same three questions representing three levels of complexity and, accordingly, three levels
of point earnings potential. Points for a problem are awarded upon submission of any solution that successfully compiles and are based on the total time that the problem was
open before it was submitted.
The Challenge Phase is a timed event wherein each competitor has a chance to challenge the functionality of other competitors' code. A successful challenge will result in
a loss of the original problem submission points by the defendant, and a 50 point reward for the challenger; unsuccessful challengers will incur a point reduction of 50 points as
a penalty, applied against their total score in that round of competition.
The System Testing Phase is applied to all submitted code that has not already been successfully challenged. If TopCoder finds code that is flawed, the author of that code
submission will lose all of the points that were originally earned for that code submission. The automated tester will apply a set of inputs, expecting the output from the code
submission to be correct. If the output from a coder's submission does not match the expected output, the submission is considered flawed. The same set of input/output test
cases will be applied to all code submissions for a given problem. All successful challenges from the Challenge Phase will be converted into sets of inputs for the System Testing
Phase.
