Question

A list of numbers has n elements, indexed from 1 to n. The following algorithm is intended to display true if the value target appears in the list more than once and to display false otherwise. The algorithm uses the variables position and count. Steps 4 and 5 are missing.

Step 1: Set count to 0 and position to 1.
Step 2: If the value of the element at index position is equal to target, increase the value of count by 1.
Step 3: Increase the value of position by 1.
Step 4: (missing step)
Step 5: (missing step)
Which of the following could be used to replace steps 4 and 5 so that the algorithm works as intended?

Answer 1

The following steps could be used to replace steps 4 and 5 so that the algorithm works as intended:

Step 4: If count is greater than 1, display true.

Step 5: Otherwise, display false.

These steps ensure that the algorithm only displays true if the value target appears in the list more than once. If count is greater than 1, then the value target must appear in the list more than once. If count is equal to 1 or less, then the value target must appear in the list at most once, so the algorithm should display false.

Step-by-step explanation: