QUESTION 4

1. To search for a key in an (unsorted) list of N numbers takes O(N) time. Searching for a key in a sorted list of N numbers takes O (log N) time. However, to sort the list (using the best algorithms) takes O (N log N) time. Thus the time to sort and then to search takes O (N log N) time, which is greater than O (N). So, when would it be beneficial to sort the list and then apply the search?