How should I practice First Value Below Both Neighbors?

Start by reading the full statement, solve the visible examples, then compare the pattern against related Capital One online assessment problems in FastPrep.

Is First Value Below Both Neighbors associated with Capital One?

FastPrep tags this as a Capital One online assessment coding practice problem when the problem catalog has that company and stage context.

First Value Below Both Neighbors

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Problem statement

Given an integer array nums, inspect its interior elements from left to right. Return the value of the first element whose immediate left and right neighbors are both strictly larger.

Return -1 when no such interior element exists. The first and last elements are not eligible because they do not have two adjacent neighbors.

Function

firstValleyValue(nums: int[]) → int

Examples

Example 1

nums = [8,3,5,2,4]return = 3

The value 3 is below both 8 and 5. Although 2 is also below both neighbors, it appears later.

Example 2

nums = [1,2,3]return = -1

The only interior value is not below either neighbor.

Example 3

nums = [5,1,1,5]return = -1

Equal adjacent values do not satisfy the strict comparison.

Constraints

3 <= nums.length <= 10^5.
0 <= nums[i] <= 10^9.