Maximum Points from Cards

Problem

Given card_points in a row, return the maximum score from taking exactly k cards, each from the left or right end of the remaining row.

The taken cards always form the complement of one contiguous window of size n - k, so subtract the minimum window sum from the total. Return the total when k covers the whole row.

Hint

Maximising the ends equals minimising the contiguous middle that is left behind.

Test cases

case 1

in: [[1,2,3,4,5,6,1],3]

expected: 12

case 2

in: [[2,2,2],2]

expected: 4

case 3

in: [[9,7,7,9,7,7,9],7]

expected: 55

case 4

in: [[1,1000,1],1]

expected: 1

case 5

in: [[5],1]

expected: 5

Starter codePython

def max_points_cards(card_points, k):
    # Your code here
    pass

5 test cases · run your code against them in the editor