Merge sort merges sublists in place

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BlackTom AI · Accepted Answer

The prompt asks us to evaluate whether the statement 'Merge sort merges sublists in place' is true or false.
Option 1: 'True' — This would claim that merge sort performs in-place merging of sublists. In the classic and most common implementation, merge sort builds a temporary auxiliary array to merge two sorted sublists, which means the merge step is not in-place. Therefore, describing merge sort as in-place merging is inaccurate in the standard context.
Option 2: 'False' — This correctly reflects the typical understanding that merge sort uses extra memory during the merge step (often an auxiliary array) and does not merge entirely in place. While there are specialized in-place variants of merge sort, the conventional algorithm relies on additional space to combine sublists, so the statement as given is not true for the standard implementation.
In other words, the common characterization of merge sort’s merge operation relies on extra storage rather than pure in-place merging, making the 'True' option misleading and the 'False' option the accurate choice in most explanations of the algorithm.

CMPSC 132 Spring 2025 Module 7 Checkpoint

Merge sort merges sublists in place

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