Which statement about bubble sort is true?

Which statement about bubble sort is true?

• A. It is a linear-time algorithm in all cases.
• B. It selects the maximum element and partitions the list.
• C. It repeatedly swaps adjacent elements to move larger elements toward the end.
• D. It uses divide-and-conquer to sort the list.

Answer: (C)

Bubble sort works by comparing neighboring items and swapping them if they’re out of order. This simple pairwise swap causes the larger elements to move step by step toward the end of the list, so with each pass the largest remaining item settles into its final position at the tail. After enough passes, the entire list is sorted. That behavior—repeatedly swapping adjacent elements to push bigger items toward the end—is exactly what this statement is describing. As a quick check, a small example helps: 3, 2, 1 becomes 2, 3, 1 after the first swap, then 2, 1, 3 after the next, and so on, with 3 ending up at the end after the first full pass. The other descriptions don’t fit bubble sort: it’s not linear time in general (it’s typically O(n^2) without special optimizations), it doesn’t involve selecting a maximum and partitioning like in some other sorts, and it doesn’t use a divide-and-conquer approach.

Bubble sort works by comparing neighboring items and swapping them if they’re out of order. This simple pairwise swap causes the larger elements to move step by step toward the end of the list, so with each pass the largest remaining item settles into its final position at the tail. After enough passes, the entire list is sorted. That behavior—repeatedly swapping adjacent elements to push bigger items toward the end—is exactly what this statement is describing.

As a quick check, a small example helps: 3, 2, 1 becomes 2, 3, 1 after the first swap, then 2, 1, 3 after the next, and so on, with 3 ending up at the end after the first full pass. The other descriptions don’t fit bubble sort: it’s not linear time in general (it’s typically O(n^2) without special optimizations), it doesn’t involve selecting a maximum and partitioning like in some other sorts, and it doesn’t use a divide-and-conquer approach.