Data Structures (BCS301) AKTU previous year questions 2020–2026
Every Data Structures question from 7 AKTU papers, tagged by unit, topic and marks. A few recent questions from each unit are listed below; open the page to filter by unit, topic or mark type.
Unit 1: Introduction, Arrays & Linked Lists – AKTU PYQs
- What is data structure? Give the classification of data structure in brief. (2 marks, 2026, Introduction & Complexity Analysis)
- What do you mean by complexity? Describe the asymptotic notation with a suitable diagram. (7 marks, 2026, Introduction & Complexity Analysis)
- Discuss doubly linked list. Write an algorithm to insert a node after a given node in a singly linked list. (7 marks, 2026, Linked Lists)
- Suppose a three-dimensional array A is declared using A[1:10, -5:5, -10:5) (i) Find the length of each dimension and the number of elements in A (ii) Explain Row major order and Column Major Order in detail with explanation formula expression. (7 marks, 2026, Arrays)
- Explain why do we need a pointer to maintain a linked list structure? (2 marks, 2025, Linked Lists)
Unit 2: Stacks, Recursion & Queues – AKTU PYQs
- What is the difference between array implementation and linked list implementation? (2 marks, 2026, Stacks)
- What do you understand by polish notion? (2 marks, 2026, Stacks)
- Write the difference between stack and Queue in Data Structure. (2 marks, 2026, Stacks)
- What do you mean by recursion? Discuss advantages and disadvantages of recursion. (2 marks, 2026, Recursion)
- Write an algorithm for converting infix expression into postfix expression. Trace your algorithm for infix expression Q into its equivalent postfix expression P, Q: A + ( B * C – ( D / E ^ F) * G ) * H (7 marks, 2026, Stacks)
Unit 3: Searching, Hashing & Sorting – AKTU PYQs
- Write the algorithm of Insertion sort & sort the following list of numbers using insertion sort. 70, 17, 30, 80, 55, 1, 29, 67, 15. (7 marks, 2026, Sorting)
- Explain linear probing and quadratic probing in hashing with examples. (7 marks, 2026, Hashing)
- What is Hashing? Explain division method to compute the hash function and also explain the collision resolution strategies used in hashing. (7 marks, 2026, Hashing)
- Write an algorithm for Heap Sort. Use Heap sort algorithm, sort the following sequence: 18, 25, 45, 34, 36, 51, 43, and 24. (7 marks, 2026, Sorting)
- Illustrate the concept of Indexed Sequential search. (2 marks, 2025, Searching)
Unit 4: Trees – AKTU PYQs
- Explain the term Complete Binary Tree. (2 marks, 2026, Trees & Binary Trees)
- What do you mean by Binary Search Tree? Construct a Binary Search Tree by inserting the following sequence of numbers. 10, 12, 5, 4, 20, 8, 7, 15 and 13. (7 marks, 2026, Binary Search Tree (BST))
- Write Short notes of following (a) Binary Search Trees (b) Complete Binary Tree (c) Extended Binary Tree (7 marks, 2026, Trees & Binary Trees)
- Insert the following sequence of elements into an AVL tree, starting with empty tree 71,41,91,56,60,30,40,80,50,55 (7 marks, 2026, AVL, B-Trees & Binary Heaps)
- Illustrate the significance of Threaded Binary Tree. (2 marks, 2025, Threaded Binary Trees)
Unit 5: Graphs – AKTU PYQs
- Define the Minimum spanning tree. (2 marks, 2026, Minimum Spanning Tree)
- Use Prim’s Algorithm to compute MST for the given weighted graph (7 marks, 2026, Minimum Spanning Tree)
- Write and explain the Floyd Warshall algorithm to find the all-pair shortest path. Use the Floyd Warshall algorithm to find shortest path among all the vertices in the given graph: (7 marks, 2026, Shortest Path & Transitive Closure)
- Explain the Depth-First Search (DFS) algorithm with the help of an example graph. Which data structure is used for DFS and BFS? (7 marks, 2025, Graphs)
- Explain two ways to represent a graph in memory and compare their advantages: (i) Adjacency matrix (ii) Adjacency List (7 marks, 2025, Graphs)