Microsoft Interview Question for SDE-2s


Country: United States
Interview Type: In-Person




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This question is a little complicate, isn't? Someone has some idea?

- tiandiao123 August 30, 2017 | Flag Reply
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What does K the torch represent? What does 'maximum of x people time' mean? Is it the maximum time a person in group takes?

But it seems like what we want to do is minimize the time required for all people to cross the bridge. If we let T = [a1,a2,...,an], we can sort T in descending order. Since x number of people can cross the bridge at a time, we can simply group T into T/x groups and move each group one at a time. To make it more clear, take the following instance:

N = 7 #number of people
T = [1,2,3,1,2,5,4] #time each person takes to cross
x = 3; #number of people that can pass per round

- sort T: [5,4,3,2,2,1,1]
- group T into T/x groups
  - group1: [5,4,3]
  - group2: [2,2,1]
  - group3: [1]

- Now group1 crosses bridge, it takes Max([5,4,3]) = 5
- Now group2 crosses bridge, it takes Max([2,2,1]) = 2
- Now group3 crosses bridge, it takes Max([1]) = 1
- Total time: 5 + 2 + 1 = 7

The above is just a greed approach. But I maybe misinterpreting the question, @neer any more details or comments?

- tnutty2k8 August 31, 2017 | Flag Reply
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Problem is generalization of Torch and Bridge puzzle. Try google it.

- neer.1304 August 31, 2017 | Flag Reply


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