When searching for the entry M within the list:A, C, E, G, I, K, O, QHow many entries will be considered before discovering that the entry is not present? (Note that the list is not in alphabetical order.)
Question
When searching for the entry M within the list:A, C, E, G, I, K, O, QHow many entries will be considered before discovering that the entry is not present? (Note that the list is not in alphabetical order.)
Solution
The list appears to be sorted in ascending order, not in alphabetical order. Therefore, we can use a binary search algorithm to find the entry 'M'. Here are the steps:
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Find the middle element of the list. In this case, the list has 8 elements, so the middle element would be the 4th one, which is 'G'.
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Since 'M' is greater than 'G', we discard the first half of the list and repeat the process with the second half (I, K, O, Q).
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The middle element of the new list (I, K, O, Q) is 'K'. Since 'M' is greater than 'K', we discard the first half of this new list and repeat the process with the second half (O, Q).
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The middle element of the new list (O, Q) is 'O'. Since 'M' is less than 'O', we know that 'M' is not in the list.
So, we considered 4 entries ('G', 'K', 'O', 'Q') before discovering that 'M' is not present in the list.
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