You don't actually need the else statement here.
If the first return statement runs, the function will be exited, and the second return statement will not run.

That said, I can see why you'd include the else statement for readability.

The last test with double spaces is what made it a great kata, in my opinion!
Maybe better as a 6 kyu, though.

Because it seemed like the point of the kata was to actually program the maximum and minimum functions and think about how they work. It's a good excercise, but obviously not practical in a production environemnt.

It's index 217 in the original list.
Look at the lengths of the two lists, the expected is 504, the actual is 503. The actual list is missing the zero.

Something in your code isn't handling zeroes correctly.
It will help to run through the code by hand and think through what would happen if the input is zero.