{"paper":{"title":"Where Do Large Language Models Fail on Competitive Programming? A Taxonomy of Failures by Algorithm Type and Difficulty Rating","license":"http://arxiv.org/licenses/nonexclusive-distrib/1.0/","headline":"","cross_cats":["cs.PL"],"primary_cat":"cs.SE","authors_text":"Ayush Kumar Jha, Shalini Jha","submitted_at":"2026-06-02T18:48:38Z","abstract_excerpt":"Large language models (LLMs) demonstrate increasing proficiency on competitive programming benchmarks, yet technical reports predominantly publish aggregate pass rates, obscuring domain-specific vulnerabilities. We present a systematic empirical study of LLM failure patterns using a balanced taxonomy of 315 Codeforces problems across seven algorithm categories and three difficulty tiers. We evaluate GPT-4o and Claude Sonnet 4.6 under strict execution-based conditions, controlling for temperature (T = 0.2). To isolate the impact of reasoning frameworks on algorithmic correctness, we conduct an "},"claims":{"count":0,"items":[],"snapshot_sha256":"258153158e38e3291e3d48162225fcdb2d5a3ed65a07baac614ab91432fd4f57"},"source":{"id":"2606.05228","kind":"arxiv","version":1},"verdict":{"id":null,"model_set":{},"created_at":null,"strongest_claim":"","one_line_summary":"","pipeline_version":null,"weakest_assumption":"","pith_extraction_headline":""},"integrity":{"clean":true,"summary":{"advisory":0,"critical":0,"by_detector":{},"informational":0},"endpoint":"/pith/2606.05228/integrity.json","findings":[],"available":true,"detectors_run":[],"snapshot_sha256":"c28c3603d3b5d939e8dc4c7e95fa8dfce3d595e45f758748cecf8e644a296938"},"references":{"count":0,"sample":[],"resolved_work":0,"snapshot_sha256":"258153158e38e3291e3d48162225fcdb2d5a3ed65a07baac614ab91432fd4f57","internal_anchors":0},"formal_canon":{"evidence_count":0,"snapshot_sha256":"258153158e38e3291e3d48162225fcdb2d5a3ed65a07baac614ab91432fd4f57"},"author_claims":{"count":0,"strong_count":0,"snapshot_sha256":"258153158e38e3291e3d48162225fcdb2d5a3ed65a07baac614ab91432fd4f57"},"builder_version":"pith-number-builder-2026-05-17-v1"}