Are you talking about these lines?

if arr[end - 1] > arr[end]: # if the element at end is not the smallest return end

We need to check both start and end (not end only).

We didn't check both start and end in the original solution because there were no duplicates the...

Ok, I understood that after doing it another time.

Is there a reason when the start & mid & end have the same values, we cannot just 'start++; end--;' ? must we do the extra checks?

I could not find an example that fail when just doing start++, end-- .

Thank you! :)

If it's just to exit early, that's understandable. ty!

We need to return if we have found the required element. This should happen before start++ or end--.

We do need to exit at that point (it is not that we are exiting early, there is no use, if we keep searching).