ITPEC FE Subject B April 2026 Question 14

A is n and B is (count ÷ (n - 1)) × 100.

Blank A — the inner loop counts how many students scored below arr[i], so it must compare against every student, j running from 1 to n. The comparison arr[i] > arr[j] is false when j equals i, so a student is never counted against themselves.

Blank B — the formula divides that count by the total number of students minus one, then scales by 100.

Check against the worked example {30, 60, 80, 72, 15}: only 15 is below 30, so count is 1 and the percentile is (1 ÷ 4) × 100 = 25, matching the stated result.

Answer (f)

Why not others:
- (a) and (b) — stop the inner loop at i, comparing each student only with those appearing earlier in the array; the first student would always score 0 regardless of their mark
- (c) and (d) — stop at i - 1, the same flaw with one fewer comparison
- (a), (c) and (e) — subtract 1 from count before dividing; the first student of the example would come out at 0 instead of 25

Key rule: The percentile depends on the whole cohort, so the inner loop must cover the whole array. A bound tied to i makes the result depend on the order the scores happen to be stored in.

AI-generated — may contain errors