What is the worst-case time complexity for searching an element in a balanced bi
Practice Questions
Q1
What is the worst-case time complexity for searching an element in a balanced binary search tree?
O(n)
O(log n)
O(n log n)
O(1)
Questions & Step-by-Step Solutions
What is the worst-case time complexity for searching an element in a balanced binary search tree?
Step 1: Understand what a balanced binary search tree (BST) is. It is a tree structure where each node has at most two children, and the left child is less than the parent node while the right child is greater.
Step 2: Know that in a balanced BST, the height of the tree is kept to a minimum. This means that the number of levels in the tree is logarithmic relative to the number of nodes.
Step 3: Realize that searching for an element in a BST involves comparing the target value with the current node's value and deciding whether to go left or right based on that comparison.
Step 4: Since the tree is balanced, each comparison allows you to eliminate half of the remaining nodes from consideration, which leads to a logarithmic number of comparisons.
Step 5: Conclude that the worst-case scenario occurs when you have to traverse the maximum height of the tree, which is log(n) where n is the number of nodes in the tree.
