Lambda takes 1 positional argument, reduce takes 2

You are writing a lambda correctly, but the reduce function is expecting you to be able to take in two arguments instead of one.

Here's a use of reduce with lambda:

from functools import reduce

print(reduce(lambda x, y: x + y, [1, 2, 3, 4, 5]))

The output will print 15 (which is 1+2+3+4+5).

Here's how the program above will work:

# First, the output list will be:
[1, 2, 3, 4, 5]
# Next, the program takes the first two elements and calls our lambda function against those two (which will add them):
[3, 2, 3, 4, 5]
# It will repeat the same action again:
[5, 3, 4, 5]
# And again...
[9, 4, 5]
# And again...
[13, 5]
# Then the answer is created.
18

As you see, the reduce function boils down a list into one value by calling a function against the first two elements, then replacing the first two elements with that result.

Here's a way to do it without using FP (Functional Python):

strings = [
    "Do not take life too seriously. You will never get out of it alive.",
    "My fake plants died because I did not pretend to water them.",
    "A day without sunshine is like, you know, night.",
    "Get your facts first, then you can distort them as you please.",
    "My grandmother started walking five miles a day when she was sixty. She's ninety-seven know and we don't know where she is.",
    "Life is hard. After all, it kills you.",
    "All my life, I always wanted to be somebody. Now I see that I should have been more specific.",
    "Everyone's like, 'overnight sensation.' It's not overnight. It's years of hard work.",
]

longest = ''
for string in strings:
    if len(string) > len(longest):
        longest = string

I hope these hints help you out

Good luck! ~Alex

The function used by reduce must take two arguments.

In this case, the function is your lambda, which you have defined as: "lambda string: ....". But a lambda used for reduce would need to take two arguments, something like this: "lambda s1, s2:".

Then, in the body of the lambda you need to perform a process that will use both arguments and return a single result. You won't need a list comprehension here because reduce takes care of calling your function repeatedly with new pairs of arguments until the source list is exhausted.

I didn't realize that the lambda can take an if statement as an argument. Once I got that I was able to pass the challenge. Thanks!