Final answer:
In locating an element among the first four in an ordered list of 32, a linear search is quicker, while binary search involves more steps despite its general efficiency for large lists.
Step-by-step explanation:
To locate an element known to be among the first four elements in an ordered list of 32 elements, a linear search would typically locate this element more quickly than a binary search. A linear search simply starts at the beginning of the list and checks each element in order until it finds the target element. Since the target is known to be in the first four elements, the linear search would find it very quickly, likely within the first four comparisons.
In contrast, a binary search would start in the middle of the list, then keep halving the search interval. For a list of 32 elements, the binary search would first check the middle (around the 16th element), then depending on whether the sought element is greater or less, it could check the middle of the first half (around the 8th element), and so on. This search pattern means it could take more steps to reach one of the first four elements.
However, it is important to note that if the location of the element was not known, binary search is more efficient for large lists because of its logarithmic time complexity, whereas linear search has a linear time complexity.