Data Structure Interview Questions
by Sourav Ganguly IT Services 14 October 2021
Big and small companies are searching for data scientists and data structure developers. Data scientists are in high demand, with big data being an inroad on many fronts. You must have a solid grip on data structures, mathematics, and programming if you are searching for a job in the field of database management, data analytics, or similar sectors.
Data structures have a market share of approximately 9.4%, according to studies. Thus, you can still make progress in data structures in your profession. A successful interview needs to be well prepared. In an interview, you never know what the interviewee can ask you. They examine the candidate’s knowledge and evaluate their experience. If you know the topic, you can answer these questions.
Data structure interview questions are essential in preparing for a Java interview or a data science interview. The interview questions about the data structure will also allow you to review the concepts.
Suppose you have little or no expertise under your belt. In that case, it’s a good idea to go through several database management or data science courses before going for an interview: Here’s a list of questions they could ask in a data structure interview.
Important Data Structure Interview Questions & Answers:
Q1: What Do You Know About ‘Data Structures’?
Answer: Data structures can be considered techniques used to define, store, and access data. They are the main component of any algorithm. They store different data types and are accessible in various ways depending on the type of data structure.
Q2: Tell Me About The Linked List?
Answer: It is a sequence of nodes linked to a node that is followed by each node. A linked list has nodes where every node has a data field and a reference for the following node in the list. In a linked list, elements are linked by pointers.
Q3: When To Apply A Binary Search?
Answer: Binary search, a type of algorithm, is best used for searching in a list where the elements are already sorted. The binary search algorithm begins to search the list from the middle. If the middle value is not accurate, it will search the top or the bottom. The objective underlying binary search itself, after each comparison, is to cut down the search space by half. And it is possible only when the dataset is sorted.
Q4: What Is A Variable?
Answer: A variable is defined as a meaningful name of a data storage location in the computer memory. When we use a variable, we refer to the memory address where the data is stored.
Q5: Explain Linear And Non-Linear Data Structures?
Answer: A linear data structure consists of a linear set of values. Lists, queues, stacks, and arrays are some typical examples of a linear data structure.
The elements are not held in sequence in a non-linear data structure. Graphs and trees are examples of non-linear data structures.
Q6: What Are The Data Structures Utilized For Recursion?
Answer: It is a stack. Recursion uses the system stack for the storage of function call’s return addresses. It remembers the caller because of its LIFO property (Last In First Out), thus knows whom to return when the function has to be returned. Every recursive function has an equivalent non-recursive (iterative) function.
Q7: What Are The Data Structure Objectives?
Answer: It needs to be structurally rich enough to match the actual data relationship in the real world. The structure should be sufficiently simple to process data efficiently.
Q8: Describe The Priority Queue?
Answer: The priority queue in the data structure is a type of data. It is comparable to a Queue with the only variation to give priority to the elements. In comparison to the elements with lesser priority, elements that have higher priority are first processed. Two queues are needed to implement a Priority Queue. One is to store the data, and the other is to keep the priority.
Q9: Tell Me About Linear Searching?
Answer: Linear search aims to locate an item in a data type structured consecutively. The data items known as the list or array are sequentially arranged and accessible in increasing memory location. The linear search’s average time complexity is O(n), and O(n2) is the worst-case complexity.
Q10: What Do You Know About Dynamic Arrays?
Answer: A dynamic array is an automatically resized array with modifications. The array will expand if more elements are added. It makes it flexible because the size is not fixed.
Q11: What Is The Purpose Of Queues?
Answer: In computer science, queues are crucial. It is helpful in operations research and transport. They are also beneficial in cases when a myriad of users share resources. FCFS scheduling is an example.
Q12: Tell Me About Shell Sort?
Answer: Shell sort is an algorithm based on the insertion sort algorithm. This method is effective in sorting. This algorithm attempts to avoid significant shifts, like in insertion sort, when the smaller value at the far right has to be moved to the far left.
Q13: What Are The Applications Of Data Structures?
Answer: Practically every element of data, data structures are vital. An efficient database structure is generally used in numerical analysis, OS, AI, Compiler Design, DBM, Graphics, and Statistical Analysis.
Q14: Explain Multi-Dimensional Arrays?
Answer: Multiple indexes are used to store data in multi-dimensional arrays. It helps store data not shown by single-dimensional indexing, such as data representation in a board game and tables in more than one column.
Q15: What Is Data Abstraction?
Answer: Data abstraction is a powerful method to break down complex data issues into manageable parts. To do this, the data objects involved and operations to be done on those data objects are originally specified without unduly regard for how the data objects are represented and saved in memory.
End Note
The fundamental notions of data structures are one of the programmers’ most precious assets. The programmers can stay ahead of the competition by knowing how to save data and handle the same thing. The questions you could find in an interview can therefore be challenging. You can crack your data structures interviews with these top data structures interview questions.
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