ITPEC IP October 2024 Question 8

At the start of each output row, set k to 1; inside the inner loop, increment k by 1. The required statements are k ← 1 and k ← k + 1. The outer variable i is the current row length. Resetting k to 1 makes every row begin with 1. The inner loop then outputs k and increments it until the values 1 through i have been printed.

After the line break, the existing i ← i + 1 advances to the next row. With n = 6, the row lengths become 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, and 6.

Answer (b)

Why not others:
- (a) changes i inside the inner loop and leaves k uninitialized
- (c) also fails to initialize and advance k correctly
- (d) derives k from old values without resetting it to 1 for each row

Key rule: Nested-loop pattern generation normally resets the inner counter before each inner loop and advances that counter once per emitted item.

AI-generated — may contain errors