Analytical flow-chart - decide what number should be in the box

Question

I am having trouble in solving the following flowchart question. Could you please help me as soon as possible ?

Links are given below:- Problem 3 and Problem 4:

http://placement.freshersworld.com/placement-papers/ThoughtWorks/Placement-Paper-Whole-Testpaper-29732

Answer 1

Problem 3:

Let's understand the instructions first.

Instruction 3 is a bit ambiguous whether it's referring to the box number or the number in the box. This becomes more straightforward when you read the rest of the instructions all referring to making changes to instruction 2. So we can conclude it means the first box number which is also the first number mentioned in the instruction's text rather than the number in the box.

Instruction 4 is a bit confusing due to its seemingly superfluous usage of the word "whose". If instruction 4 is interpreted to mean look at the number in box 6 and go to that instruction number, if you try to work out the rest of the problem, we have an infinite loop. But if we interpret it to mean: boxes[boxes[6]] then we don't have an infinite loop.

Let's write some code, the following is JavaScript which you can execute in your JavaScript console, in chrome that is ctrl+shift+j:

var instruction2Variables=[null,1,10];
var boxes=[null,8,6,5,7,4,2,2,11,8,-2,2,1];
var instructions=[];
instructions[1]=function()
{
    boxes[11]=boxes[11]+3;
};
instructions[2]=function()
{
    instruction2Variables[2]=instruction2Variables[1];
};
instructions[3]=function()
{
    return instruction2Variables[1]%2==1;
}
instructions[4]=function()
{
    return boxes[boxes[6]];
}
instructions[5]=function()
{
    instruction2Variables[1]+=2;
}
instructions[6]=function()
{
    boxes[11]=boxes[5]+boxes[11];
}
instructions[7]=function()
{
    instruction2Variables[1]+=boxes[12];
    instruction2Variables[2]-=boxes[12];
}
instructions[8]=function()
{
    return instruction2Variables[2]<boxes[1];
}
instructions[9]=function()
{
    return 2;
}


var loops=0;
for(var i=1;i<10;i++)
{
    loops++;
    if(loops>1000){console.log('breaking an endless loop...');break;}
    console.log('Instruction '+i);
    var result=instructions[i]();
    if(i==3)
    {
        if(!result){i=6;continue;}
    }else if(i==4){
        console.log('Going to instruction '+result);
        i=result;continue;
    }else if(i==8){
        if(result){i=10;break;}
    }

}

boxes.shift();//get rid of our leading null value
console.log(boxes);//[8, 6, 5, 7, 4, 2, 2, 11, 8, -2, 5, 1]

Problem 4:

First we need to realize the yes/no for instruction 3 is actually pointing the wrong way. There is no question in instruction 1, so the "no" result for instruction 3 is supposed to point upwards meaning to repeat instruction 1 again if "yes".

Instruction 2 seems to reference boxes beyond our 12 boxes at first glance, but it really means we're increasing where we're storing our result of what will always be zero.

Solving this is rather easy. Our first loop we will be storing a 0 in box 2. Our second loop we will be storing a 0 in box 4. Our third loop we will be storing a 0 in box 6. After this, we must stop the looping at exactly this point as-to not corrupt our data. Our answer at first glace seems to be 6, but we're changing our box data in instruction 1 and changing instruction 1 in instruction 2. So after we execute instruction 1 for a third time, we will have boxes 2,4, and 6 set to 0. Then we will run instruction 2 for a third time, thus increasing the box reference to box 8. Finally we want to break our loop, so we need box 3 to store a value of 8.