A call center agent has a list of 305 phone numbers of people in alphabetic order of names (but
she does not have any of the names). She needs to quickly contact Deepak Sharma to convey a
message to him. If each call takes 2 minutes to complete, and every call is answered, what is
the minimum amount of time in which she can guarantee to deliver the message to Mr.
Sharma.

• the call center agent first calls 305 and asks their name(worst case) then calls the middle no. i.e. (305/2)=152.5(take 152 or 153 depends on you) and asks them their name to get an idea of whether to go to left or right side of (152 (my take)) no. directory and suppose person replies R then agent will go to left side and again call (152/2=76) and asks their name and in similar way filter the list by either going to left (or right side ) and thus the list will be shortened as 305,153,76,38,19,9,4,2,1 .So minimum time= 9*2=18 mins.
• 9 years agoHelpfull: Yes(26) No(1)