I'll preface by stating that I'm a novice myself. So, more experience coders may need to clarify or correct what I'm saying. Also, I only know Python, and my comments are based on using that language.

You are correct that the data is a nested list (list of lists). You can set up nested FOR loops to iterate through the data, but I personally don't think it's worth the trouble since the nested (inner) lists are only two items long. I would only set up nested FOR loops if the nested (inner) lists are longer than 3 items OR if the number of items in the nested (inner) lists may vary.

I'm assuming that you haven't solved the kata yet. So, I'm trying to avoid spoilers. But, I will point out to you you can use one FOR loop and use your iterator to access each item in the list based on its position in the list (in this case [0] and [1]).

Hope this helps!

This solution is similar to the one I submitted, but mine was immediately flagged as being a cheat. Does anyone know how code gets flagged as being a cheat? I've never had it happen before.

On a side note, I think it would be good to inform someone that their code was flagged for cheating. The only reason I knew mine was flagged is that I searched for it among the solutions and didn't find it (which I honestly don't usually do... I usually look through solutions to learn from others, not to see my own name up in lights).

OK, I see. Thanks for the reference.

I understand now. Thank you for the explanation and for recommending a resource.

Disclaimer: I am very new at programming. I'm trying to learn by asking questions. If I offend by my question, please forgive me. I only know enough to be dangerous.

If you make the hash table twice as large as a3 with the goal of reducing collisions, why wouldn't you just make the hash table of size 'a1 * a2'? Wouldn't that eliminate all possibility of collisions?