Word Search

MediumBacktrackingBacktracking

Solve this the way you would in the interview: out loud, on a timer, with an AI interviewer asking follow-ups while you code. You get a scored report at the end.

Practice this as a mock interviewFree to start, no account needed

Problem

Given an m x n grid of characters board and a string word, return true if word exists in the grid. The word can be constructed from letters of sequentially adjacent cells, where adjacent cells are horizontally or vertically neighboring. The same letter cell may not be used more than once.

Examples

Input: board = [["A","B","C","E"],["S","F","C","S"],["A","D","E","E"]], word = "ABCCED"
Output: true
Input: board = [["A","B","C","E"],["S","F","C","S"],["A","D","E","E"]], word = "SEE"
Output: true
Input: board = [["A","B","C","E"],["S","F","C","S"],["A","D","E","E"]], word = "ABCB"
Output: false

Constraints

  • m == board.length
  • n = board[i].length
  • 1 <= m, n <= 6
  • 1 <= word.length <= 15
  • board and word consists of only lowercase and uppercase English letters.

What the interviewer grades

A correct solution is one of five scores. The report also grades problem understanding (did you clarify inputs and edge cases before coding), problem solving, communication while you work, code quality, and testing. See a sample report, or read up on the pattern in the lessons.

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