GCSE Computer Science (Edexcel)

Topic Summaries

ALGORITHMS AND PROGRAMMING: Computational thinking

Searching algorithms

  Method Use case Example
Linear search Check each item in the list one by one until the target is found Small or unsorted data sets

Searching for 7 in [4, 2, 7, 9]:

→ Check 4, 2, then 7
Binary search

Look at the middle item. If it’s not the target:

  • Go left if the target is smaller
  • Go right if it’s bigger
  • Repeat until found or list is empty
 Large, sorted data sets

Searching for 6 in [1, 3, 5, 6, 8, 9]:

→ Middle is 5

→ go right

→ 6

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