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An unordered list contains n distinct elements. The number of comparisons to find an element in this list that is neither maximum nor minimum is
  • a)
    Θ(nlogn)
  • b)
    Θ(n)
  • c)
    Θ(logn)
  • d)
    Θ(1)
Correct answer is option 'D'. Can you explain this answer?
Verified Answer
An unordered list contains n distinct elements. The number of comparis...
We only need to consider any 3 elements and compare them. So the number of comparisons is constants, that makes time complexity as Θ(1) The catch here is, we need to return any element that is neither maximum not minimum. Let us take an array {10, 20, 15, 7, 90}. Output can be 10 or 15 or 20 Pick any three elements from given liar. Let the three elements be 10, 20 and 7. Using 3 comparisons, we can find that the middle element is 10.
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Most Upvoted Answer
An unordered list contains n distinct elements. The number of comparis...
Finding an element in an unordered list that is neither the maximum nor the minimum requires comparing each element of the list with the current maximum and minimum values. Let's break down the solution to understand why the correct answer is option 'D' (1 comparison).

1. Explanation:
To find an element in the list that is neither the maximum nor the minimum, we need to compare each element with the current maximum and minimum values. We keep track of the maximum and minimum values as we iterate through the list.

2. Algorithm:
The algorithm to find the element can be summarized as follows:
- Initialize the maximum value to the first element of the list and the minimum value to the last element of the list.
- Iterate through the list from the second element to the second-to-last element.
- For each element, compare it with the current maximum and minimum values.
- If the element is greater than the maximum value, update the maximum value.
- If the element is less than the minimum value, update the minimum value.
- After iterating through the entire list, we will have the maximum and minimum values.
- Iterate through the list again and compare each element with the maximum and minimum values.
- If an element is neither the maximum nor the minimum, we have found our element.

3. Number of Comparisons:
In the worst-case scenario, the element we are looking for is neither the maximum nor the minimum. In this case, we need to compare each element with the maximum and minimum values. Since there are only two values to compare with, we need only one comparison for each element.

Therefore, the number of comparisons to find an element in the list that is neither the maximum nor the minimum is 1.

In conclusion, the correct answer is option 'D' (1 comparison) because we only need to compare each element once with the maximum and minimum values to find the element in the list.
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An unordered list contains n distinct elements. The number of comparisons to find an element in this list that is neither maximum nor minimum isa)Θ(nlogn)b)Θ(n)c)Θ(logn)d)Θ(1)Correct answer is option 'D'. Can you explain this answer?
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