Western Governors University (WGU) ICSC2100 C949 Data Structures and Algorithms I Practice Exam

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What key property defines a binary search tree (BST)?

Each child is greater than or equal to the parent

Left child's key is less than parent's key

The defining property of a binary search tree (BST) is that for every node in the tree, the key of the left child must be less than the key of its parent node. This property ensures that all values in the left subtree are smaller than the value of the parent, while values in the right subtree are greater. This structure allows for efficient searching, insertion, and deletion operations, as it maintains an ordered relationship among the keys.

Specifically, this property allows the binary search algorithm to work effectively, as searching for a particular value can be done by comparing the target value to the node values and deciding to traverse either left or right in the tree. By adhering to this property consistently across all nodes, a BST allows for logarithmic time complexities for these operations, making it a valuable structure in computer science for managing sorted data.

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All nodes have two children

Nodes can have any number of children

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