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Python: Which practice avoids a common mistake with Sorting, Key Functions, and Timsort?

Difficulty:

Medium

Questions:

1

Time Limit:

2 minutes

Passing Score:

100%

Question

Which practice avoids a common mistake with Sorting, Key Functions, and Timsort?

  1. Ignore the Sorting, Key Functions, and Timsort issue and rely on team discipline instead of clearer APIs or invariants.
  2. Silence the Sorting, Key Functions, and Timsort problem by using broad catches, hidden globals, or extra shared mutable state.
  3. Do not sort repeatedly inside loops or ignore stability when multiple ordering passes or group-sensitive behavior matter.
  4. Prefer the version of Sorting, Key Functions, and Timsort that makes behavior less predictable as long as the code still runs.

Hint

Look for the option that protects correctness instead of hiding the problem.

Answer and rationale

Correct answer: C. Do not sort repeatedly inside loops or ignore stability when multiple ordering passes or group-sensitive behavior matter.

Do not sort repeatedly inside loops or ignore stability when multiple ordering passes or group-sensitive behavior matter. This is a common failure mode in real Python code and a frequent interview follow-up.

Track: Python