Question

What is/are the values of the variable bunnies when this method stops calling itself (when it reaches the base case)?

public static int bunnyEars(int bunnies)
{
if (bunnies == 0) return 0;
else if (bunnies == 1) return 2;
else return 2 + bunnyEars(bunnies - 1);
}
A. 0
B. 1
C. Both 0 and 1

Answer 1

Answer: The value of the variable bunnies when this method stops calling itself is 0.

Explanation: The bunnyEars method is a recursive method that calculates the total number of ears across all the bunnies in a given group. The method takes an integer argument called bunnies, which represents the number of bunnies in the group.

The method first checks if the value of bunnies is 0. If it is, then it returns 0. This is the base case for the recursion. If the value of bunnies is 1, then it returns 2. This is because there is only one bunny in this case, and each bunny has two ears.

If the value of bunnies is greater than 1, then the method returns 2 plus the result of calling bunnyEars with an argument of one less than the original argument. This continues until the base case is reached (when bunnies == 0), at which point the method stops calling itself and returns 0.

So, if you call bunnyEars with an argument of 0, it will return 0. If you call it with an argument of 1, it will return 2. If you call it with an argument of 2, it will return 5 (2 + bunnyEars(1)). If you call it with an argument of 3, it will return 7 (2 + bunnyEars(2)). And so on.

Hope this helps, and have a great day!