How should I practice Last Candidate Standing?

Start by reading the full statement, solve the visible examples, then compare the pattern against related Goldman Sachs phone screen problems in FastPrep.

Is Last Candidate Standing associated with Goldman Sachs?

FastPrep tags this as a Goldman Sachs phone screen coding practice problem when the problem catalog has that company and stage context.

Problem · Math

Last Candidate Standing

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Goldman SachsFULLTIMEPHONE SCREEN

Problem statement

Candidates numbered 1 through n stand in a circle. Starting at candidate 1, repeatedly count k remaining candidates, including the current candidate as count one. Eliminate the candidate counted as k, then continue from the next remaining candidate.

Return the number of the final candidate.

Function

lastCandidateStanding(n: int, k: int) → int

Examples

Example 1

n = 5k = 2return = 3

Candidates 2, 4, 1, and 5 are eliminated, leaving 3.

Example 2

n = 7k = 3return = 4

The standard Josephus recurrence leaves candidate 4.

Constraints

1 <= n <= 10000000
1 <= k <= 10^9