Circle Summation (30 Points) InterviewStree Puzzle cont
#include &lt;iostream&gt;
#include &lt;algorithm&gt;
#include &lt;iterator&gt;
#include &lt;stdio.h&gt;


int main ( int argc, char **argv) {
    int T; // number of test cases
    std::cin &gt;&gt; T;
    for ( int i = 0 ; i &lt; T; i++) {
        int N; // number of childrens
        std::cin &gt;&gt; N;
        int M; // number of rounds
        std::cin &gt;&gt; M;


Why split this across two lines instead of std::cin &gt;&gt; N &gt;&gt; M;?

        long long childrens[50];


I missed this in my first submissions and tried using 32 bit integers. It didn't work so well...

        for ( int j = 0; j &lt; N; j++ ) 
            std::cin &gt;&gt; childrens[j];

        int pos = 0;
        for ( int i = 0; i &lt; N ; i++) {
            long long childs[50];
            for ( int j = 0; j &lt; N; j++ ) 
                childs[j] = childrens[j];
            for ( int j = 0; j &lt; M; j++) {
                int left  = ( pos     == 0)  ? N - 1  : pos - 1;


You can use left = (pos + N - 1) % N which works thanks to modular math.

                int right = ( pos + 1 &gt;= N ) ? 0      : pos + 1;


You can use right = (pos + 1) % N

                childs[pos] = (childs[pos] + childs[left] + childs[right])% 1000000007;
                pos++;
                pos   = ( pos &gt;= N ) ? 0 : pos;


You can use pos = (pos + 1) % N

            }
            std::copy(childs ,childs + N ,std::ostream_iterator&lt;long long&gt;(std::cout," "));
            std::cout &lt;&lt; std::endl;
        }
        std::cout &lt;&lt; std::endl;
    }
    return 0;
}


Generally, writing brute force solutions for a site like Interviewstreet is a waste of time.   Its not like you can write your brute force solution, and then optimize it so that it will run fast enough. You need to come up with a completely different approach.

Since Interviewstreet is trying to test your abilities I'm not going to share my solution. (Unless you have a solution for the Meeting Point problem, then I'll trade :P) But I will give a hint: think back to linear algebra.