Trace first pass of heap sort
Company: Bitkernel
Role: Software Engineer
Category: Software Engineering Fundamentals
Difficulty: medium
Interview Round: Take-home Project
Given the integer array `[7, 6, 3, 5, 4, 1, 2]`, you apply heap sort to sort it in ascending order using a max-heap implementation.
After building the initial max-heap and performing the first extraction step (swap the root with the last element and then heapify the remaining elements), what is the resulting order of the array?
Options:
- A. `1-2-3-4-5-6-7`
- B. `2-6-3-5-4-1-7`
- C. `6-5-3-2-4-1-7`
- D. `5-4-3-2-1-6-7`
Quick Answer: This question evaluates understanding of heap sort and heap operations, specifically max-heap construction, root extraction, and subsequent heapify steps during an in-place array sort.