Lesson 4:

Linear search
KS4 - Algorithms
 Starter activity

Searching for a book

Think about how you would instruct someone to find a book:

● On a randomly ordered bookcase in someone’s bedroom

● In the fiction section at a library

Question:
Would the instructions be the same in both cases?

Think, write, pair, share.

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 Objectives

Lesson 4: Linear search

In this lesson, you will:
● Identify why computers often need to search data

● Describe how linear search is used for finding the position of an

item in a list of items

● Perform a linear search to find the position of an item in a list

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 Activity 1

Searching for an item

Whenever there are lots of items,

it’s important to be able to find
the one you need.

For instance, you might need to

look through a clothing rail to find
an item in your size or search
through a pack of cards for a
particular card.

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 Activity 1

Searching for an item

Computers need to search through sequences of data all the time, such
as trying to find a file with a particular name on your computer.

Another example is using a search engine to find websites on the

internet that match certain keywords.

When faced with a search problem, you will either have to deal with
ordered or unordered sequences of data.

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 Activity 2

Linear search
Linear search is an algorithm that involves checking each item in a list
or sequence of data one at a time (hence “linear”) to see if it’s the right
item.

If you have a list that is not in order, a linear search is the only
reasonable way to search through it.

In the next slides, you will see an example of how to perform a linear
search.

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 Activity 2

Linear search
Each number is hidden under a cup. The cups are arranged in a
random order. From the cups, the number to find is 126.

Cup 1 Cup 2 Cup 3 Cup 4 Cup 5 Cup 6 Cup 7 Cup 8 Cup 9

27 358 62 9 412 126 81 175 408

● Take a list of data and an item that is being searched for (the search
item).

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 Activity 2

Linear search
Each number is hidden under a cup. The cups are arranged in a
random order. From the cups, the number to find is 126.

Cup 1 Cup 2 Cup 3 Cup 4 Cup 5 Cup 6 Cup 7 Cup 8 Cup 9

27 358 62 9 412 126 81 175 408

current

● Start from the first item in the list.

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 Activity 2

Linear search
Each number is hidden under a cup. The cups are arranged in a
random order. From the cups, the number to find is 126.

Cup 1 Cup 2 Cup 3 Cup 4 Cup 5 Cup 6 Cup 7 Cup 8 Cup 9

27 358 62 9 412 126 81 175 408

current

● Compare the item at the current position to the search item.

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 Activity 2

Linear search
Each number is hidden under a cup. The cups are arranged in a
random order. From the cups, the number to find is 126.

Cup 1 Cup 2 Cup 3 Cup 4 Cup 5 Cup 6 Cup 7 Cup 8 Cup 9

27 358 62 9 412 126 81 175 408

current

● If it is not the item you are searching for, go to the next item in the
list.

1
0
 Activity 2

Linear search
Each number is hidden under a cup. The cups are arranged in a
random order. From the cups, the number to find is 126.

Cup 1 Cup 2 Cup 3 Cup 4 Cup 5 Cup 6 Cup 7 Cup 8 Cup 9

27 358 62 9 412 126 81 175 408

current

● Compare the item at the current position to the search item.

1
1
 Activity 2

Linear search
Each number is hidden under a cup. The cups are arranged in a
random order. From the cups, the number to find is 126.

Cup 1 Cup 2 Cup 3 Cup 4 Cup 5 Cup 6 Cup 7 Cup 8 Cup 9

27 358 62 9 412 126 81 175 408

current

● If it is not the item you are searching for, go to the next item in the
list.

1
2
 Activity 2

Linear search
Each number is hidden under a cup. The cups are arranged in a
random order. From the cups, the number to find is 126.

Cup 1 Cup 2 Cup 3 Cup 4 Cup 5 Cup 6 Cup 7 Cup 8 Cup 9

27 358 62 9 412 126 81 175 408

current

● Compare the item at the current position to the search item.

1
3
 Activity 2

Linear search
Each number is hidden under a cup. The cups are arranged in a
random order. From the cups, the number to find is 126.

Cup 1 Cup 2 Cup 3 Cup 4 Cup 5 Cup 6 Cup 7 Cup 8 Cup 9

27 358 62 9 412 126 81 175 408

current

● If it is not the item you are searching for, go to the next item in the
list.

1
4
 Activity 2

Linear search
Each number is hidden under a cup. The cups are arranged in a
random order. From the cups, the number to find is 126.

Cup 1 Cup 2 Cup 3 Cup 4 Cup 5 Cup 6 Cup 7 Cup 8 Cup 9

27 358 62 9 412 126 81 175 408

current

● Compare the item at the current position to the search item.

1
5
 Activity 2

Linear search
Each number is hidden under a cup. The cups are arranged in a
random order. From the cups, the number to find is 126.

Cup 1 Cup 2 Cup 3 Cup 4 Cup 5 Cup 6 Cup 7 Cup 8 Cup 9

27 358 62 9 412 126 81 175 408

current

● If it is not the item you are searching for, go to the next item in the
list.

1
6
 Activity 2

Linear search
Each number is hidden under a cup. The cups are arranged in a
random order. From the cups, the number to find is 126.

Cup 1 Cup 2 Cup 3 Cup 4 Cup 5 Cup 6 Cup 7 Cup 8 Cup 9

27 358 62 9 412 126 81 175 408

current

● Compare the item at the current position to the search item.

1
7
 Activity 2

Linear search
Each number is hidden under a cup. The cups are arranged in a
random order. From the cups, the number to find is 126.

Cup 1 Cup 2 Cup 3 Cup 4 Cup 5 Cup 6 Cup 7 Cup 8 Cup 9

27 358 62 9 412 126 81 175 408

current

● If it is not the item you are searching for, go to the next item in the
list.

1
8
 Activity 2

Linear search
Each number is hidden under a cup. The cups are arranged in a
random order. From the cups, the number to find is 126.

Cup 1 Cup 2 Cup 3 Cup 4 Cup 5 Cup 6 Cup 7 Cup 8 Cup 9

27 358 62 9 412 126 81 175 408

current

● Compare the item at the current position to the search item.

1
9
 Activity 2

Linear search
Each number is hidden under a cup. The cups are arranged in a
random order. From the cups, the number to find is 126.

Cup 1 Cup 2 Cup 3 Cup 4 Cup 5 Cup 6 Cup 7 Cup 8 Cup 9

27 358 62 9 412 126 81 175 408

current

● If the item at the current position is equal to the search item, then
stop searching.

2
0
 Activity 2

Algorithm for linear search

The instructions for performing a linear search can be written as:

1. Take a list of data and an item that is being searched for (the search
item)
2. Repeat steps a-c starting from the first item in the list, until you find
the search item or until the end of the list is reached:
a. Compare the item at the current position to the search item
b. If the item at the current position is equal to the search item,
then stop searching.
c. Otherwise, go to the next item in the list.

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1
 Activity 3

Searching shuffled cards

You are now going to perform a linear search on a set of cards:

1. Take 10 cards and choose a card to search for

2. Shuffle the cards thoroughly
3. Place 6 of the 10 cards face down in a single row without looking at
them
4. Perform a linear search for your chosen card and fill in the table

Rules: you can only turn over one card at a time. You must turn it back
over after each comparison.

Follow the instructions in groups of 2 or 3 and answer the questions

on the Activity 3 worksheet.
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 Activity 4

Performance of an algorithm
In the last activity, you may have noticed that the amount of cards you
had to compare to your search card wasn’t always the same.

In computer science, it is useful to know how long an algorithm may

take to complete under different scenarios.

The number of steps an algorithm needs to perform depending on the

input data can be expressed as the best and worst-case scenario.

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 Activity 4

Best-case scenario
The best-case scenario occurs when the item you are looking for
results in the smallest possible number of steps.

In the case of linear search, this happens when the item you are looking
for is the very first one in the list.

Best-case

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 Activity 4

Worst-case scenario
The worst-case scenario takes place when the item you are looking
for results in the greatest possible number of steps.

With linear search, this happens when the item you are looking for is
the very last one in the list or it isn’t in the list at all.

Worst-
case

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 Activity 4

Carrying out a linear search

Complete the tasks on the

Activity 4 worksheet for
performing a linear search.

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 Plenary

Best and worst-case scenario

Answer the questions below when performing a linear search on these
cards:

1. What card would you need to search for the best-case scenario to
occur?
2. What card would give you the worst-case scenario?
3. How many comparisons would it take to work out that a card wasn’t
in the set of cards?

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 Homework

Homework: Linear search flowchart

Create a flowchart for a linear

search using the instructions in
the homework sheet as a guide.

Due: Next lesson

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 Summary

Next lesson

In this lesson, you… Next lesson, you will…

Identified why computers often Investigate another searching

need to search data. algorithm called binary search.

Described how linear search is

used for finding the position of an
item in a list of items.

Performed a linear search to find

the position of an item in a list.

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