Time complexity

Question

An unsorted list contain log(n) (base 2) distinct elements. The time complexity to find an element in this list that is neither maximum nor minimum is?

Comments

it will be O(1),

take any 3 elements and do comparison among them.

Answer 1

It will take O(1) time.

since it is given that all are distinct element so, lets say array of 5 element 

A = {4, 7, 3, 8, 10} is given,

now when you compare first 3 number 4, 7, 3 you can say that 3 is minimum and 7 is maximum where 

4 is neither minimum nor maximum, Hence using only 3 comparison means in O(1) time you can find it.

Hence, it is O(1).