Design and Analysis of Algorithm Unit 1 – Introduction: Algorithms and Sorting: AKTU previous year questions
46 AKTU questions from Unit 1 (Introduction: Algorithms and Sorting) asked in 2019–2026, tagged by marks, year and topic. In short: about 32 marks of every paper come from this unit; the most asked topic is Algorithm Analysis Basics (25 times); 30 questions came back in a later year. The latest ones are listed below; on the page you can filter them by 2-mark or long questions, topic and repeats.
Unit 1 previous year questions
- Define algorithm and its characteristics. (2 marks, 2026, Algorithm Analysis Basics)
- Compute the time complexity of the following recurrence relation. T(n)= √n T(√n) + n if n>2 = 2 if n=2. (2 marks, 2026, Algorithm Analysis Basics)
- Find the total number of comparisons after using the Insertion sort on the following array. Array A= {23, 32, 40, 44, 54, 63, 72, 89}. (2 marks, 2026, Comparison Based Sorting)
- Define growth of functions. (2 marks, 2026, Algorithm Analysis Basics)
- Compute the time complexity of the following recurrence relation. T(n) = 2T(n-1) + n if n>1 = 1 if n=1. (7 marks, 2026, Algorithm Analysis Basics)
- Let P be a Quick Sort Program to sort numbers in ascending order using the first element as pivot. Let t1 and t2 be the number of comparisons made by P for the inputs {1, 2, 3, 4, 5} and {4, 1, 5, 3, 2} respectively. Find the number of t1 and t2. (7 marks, 2026, Comparison Based Sorting)
- Provide the decreasing order of asymptotic complexity of functions f1, f2, and f3 and justify your answer: f1(n) = n^{k log n}, f2(n) = n^{1000}, and f3(n) = k^{n log k}, where k is a very large constant. (7 marks, 2026, Algorithm Analysis Basics)
- Explain Merge Sort with example and also compute time complexity. (7 marks, 2026, Comparison Based Sorting)
- With example define algorithm. List few algorithm design techniques. (2 marks, 2025, Algorithm Analysis Basics)
- Briefly discuss the basic steps taken to design an algorithm. (2 marks, 2025, Algorithm Analysis Basics)
- Derive the time complexity of Heap Sort. (2 marks, 2025, Comparison Based Sorting)
- Illustrate the operation of Merge –Sort on array A= (38, 27, 43, 3, 9, 82, 10). Also drive the time complexity of Merge Sort. (7 marks, 2025, Comparison Based Sorting)
Most asked Unit 1 topics
- Algorithm Analysis Basics – asked 25 times
- Comparison Based Sorting – asked 18 times
- Sorting in Linear Time – asked 3 times
Unit 1 question pattern
- 2-mark questions: 21 asked in 2019–2026
- 7-mark questions: 13 asked in 2019–2026
- 10-mark questions: 12 asked in 2019–2026
- About 32 marks from Unit 1 in every paper
- 30 questions were asked again in a later year
Unit 1 questions year by year
- 2026: 8 Unit 1 questions asked (36 marks across that year's papers)
- 2025: 6 Unit 1 questions asked (27 marks across that year's papers)
- 2024: 5 Unit 1 questions asked (34 marks across that year's papers)
- 2023: 5 Unit 1 questions asked (34 marks across that year's papers)
- 2022: 5 Unit 1 questions asked (34 marks across that year's papers)
- 2021: 7 Unit 1 questions asked (38 marks across that year's papers)
- 2020: 5 Unit 1 questions asked (25 marks across that year's papers)
- 2019: 5 Unit 1 questions asked (25 marks across that year's papers)