Which option best defines Linear Search?

• A. A sequential search through a list until a list item is found.
• B. A binary search on a sorted array.
• C. A hashing-based lookup.
• D. A depth-first traversal in a tree.

Answer: (A)

Linear search is a straightforward method for finding a target by checking each element in the list one by one from the start until you find a match or reach the end. It doesn’t require the data to be sorted, which makes it simple to implement, but it can be inefficient for large lists because you may have to inspect every item, giving you a time complexity of O(n) in the worst case. This description matches a sequential search through a list until an item is found. The other options describe different techniques: binary search needs a sorted array and halves the search space, hashing-based lookup uses a hash table for faster-than-linear lookups, and depth-first traversal is about exploring a tree structure, not performing a linear scan of a list.