A Level Computer Science OCR Practice Exam

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What is a characteristic of Quadratic Complexity?

The time increases with the square of the number of data objects
The time remains constant regardless of data size
The time is directly proportional to the number of data objects
It increases logarithmically with data objects

The correct answer is: The time increases with the square of the number of data objects

A characteristic of Quadratic Complexity is that the time required for an operation increases with the square of the number of data objects. This means that if you have 'n' data objects, the time complexity can be expressed as O(n^2). This type of complexity often arises in algorithms that involve nested loops where each loop iterates over the data. For example, if an algorithm must compare each element in a list with every other element, the number of operations will be proportional to the square of the number of elements in that list. As the size of the data grows, the impact of Quadratic Complexity becomes significant, leading to increased processing time as the number of data items increases.