# Hackerearth practice problem not able to understand

I am not able to understand below problem, mainly the example. I have tried to ask explanation in their website but not received help yet.

how they are calculating 36 and 43? and why 36+43 = 30$is written? Can I get a diagram visualizing this, because I think wood cutter should cost 12$ because only 3*4 area is needed.

Practice Problem on HackerEarth:-

Ad-optimization team is moving to their new office Safina Towers :) . But the problem is Safina towers don't have furniture, but you have wood-sheet. You are given a wood-sheet of length L . Since everyone wants to create their desk in their own style you have to give them some amount of wood. So, you are given N mark-down points (since ad-optimization team have n members) from that points you have to cut the wood sheet. But the problem is wood-cutter will cost (Xleft) + (Y right) for cutting the wood (where left and right is the size of the remaining parts of the wood after cutting). For example you want to cut a wood sheet of length 10 and X=3 and Y=4 and you want to cut at point 7 then left segment size = (7-1) =6 and right segment size = (10-7) = 3 then wood cutter will cost 36+43 = 30$. Question Link • What is your question? – Raphael Nov 16 '17 at 12:36 • how they are calculating 36 and 43? and why 36+43 = 30$ is written? – Harish Gyanani Nov 16 '17 at 12:43
• It's not 36 and 43. It should be $3\times6+4\times3$. That's 30. Now can you figure where they got those numbers? – Rick Decker Nov 16 '17 at 12:48
• @RickDecker I believe you are right, I have edited the question so that I can understand it completely and code for it. Thanks in advance – Harish Gyanani Nov 16 '17 at 13:05

Most simple explanation: The problem has been written down at hackerearth in some markup "language" not mastered by the author. Multiplication has been denoted using an asterisk * instead of a multiplication sign × (regrettably common since the introduction of type-writers). The markup seems to define that as a toggle between "normal" and "stand-out" text modes: there is a multiplication sign missing everywhere the text alternates between standard and italics. My stab at correction:

Ad-optimization team is moving to their new office Safina Towers :). But the problem is Safina towers don't have furniture: You are given a wood-sheet of length L. Since everyone wants to create their desk in their own style you have to give them some amount of wood. So, you are given N mark-down points (since ad-optimization team has N members). From that points you have to cut the wood sheet. But the problem is wood-cutter will cost (X×left) + (Y×right) for cutting the wood (where left and right is the size of the remaining parts of the wood after cutting).
For example you want to cut a wood sheet of length 10 and X=3 and Y=4 and you want to cut at point 7 then left segment size = (7-1) = 6 and right segment size = (10-7) = 3 then wood cutter will cost 3×6+4×3 = 30.

As Amazonian you have to follow frugality leadership principal, you want to give wood cutter a minimum amount of money and want to cut wood-sheet from every marking point between 1 to L (exclusive). please note that in all the test case first mark point=1 and last mark point = size of sheet (L). Please output minimum amount of money needed for every test case.

Input Format: T: number of test cases (1≤T≤5) For each test case:

First line contains X and Y. (X: multiplier for left segment, Y: multiplier for right segment)
2≤X≤100 2≤Y≤100

Second line Contains N: Number of marking points (2≤N≤100)

Third line contains marking point : m(0), m(1) … , m(n-1) marking points on wood sheet, where m(0)=1, m(n-1)=L and 2≤L≤200000

Output: For each test case : Minimum amount of money you have to pay to wood cutter. Each test case answer must be printed on a new line.

• Said author probably is as much a native speaker of English as I am. – greybeard Nov 21 '17 at 7:12