why is it faster to process a sorted array than an unsorted array?

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Answer 1

"Process" as in ...? If you want to find the sum of all elements it doesn't make a difference whether the elements are sorted or not. If you want to find the number 6 in an array of sorted integers like {1, 2, 2, 4, 7, 8, 8, 8, 8, 9}, you can begin from the left and stop at 7 because that tells you that there won't be a 6 anywhere in the array (linear search). If the array wasn't sorted, you'd have to check every number in the array to make sure that there isn't a 6 hiding anywhere in the array, so that would take slightly more time. Other algorithms like binary search won't work at all with an array that isn't sorted.