How should I practice Two City Scheduling with an Odd Candidate Count?

Start by reading the full statement, solve the visible examples, then compare the pattern against related Bloomberg LP phone screen and onsite interview problems in FastPrep.

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Two City Scheduling with an Odd Candidate Count

Bloomberg LP● MediumNEW GRADPHONE SCREENONSITE INTERVIEW

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Problem statement

Each row costs[i] = [newYorkCost, sanFranciscoCost] gives the travel cost for candidate i to attend an onsite interview in one of two cities.

Send exactly ceil(n / 2) candidates to New York and every remaining candidate to San Francisco. Return the minimum possible total travel cost.

Function

minimumTravelCost(costs: int[][]) → long

Examples

Example 1

costs = [[10,20],[30,200],[400,50],[30,20]]return = 110

Send the first two candidates to New York and the other two to San Francisco for 10 + 30 + 50 + 20 = 110.

Example 2

costs = [[10,100],[20,30],[30,20]]return = 50

Because n = 3, exactly two candidates go to New York. Sending the first two there and the third to San Francisco costs 10 + 20 + 20 = 50.

Example 3

costs = [[7,3]]return = 7

The New York quota is one, so the only candidate must go to New York even though San Francisco is cheaper.

Constraints

1 <= costs.length <= 100000.
costs[i].length = 2.
1 <= costs[i][j] <= 100000.