Binary heaps

By : Manglika Tripathi

Updated : Feb 25, 2021, 3:09

Binary heaps are complete binary trees that can be represented using an array. There are no empty keys in any levels of the trees, excluding the last levels. There can be two types of binary heaps, which are Min heap and Max heap. Going by the binary heaps book, you should learn to identify the type of binary heaps asked and the heap sorting procedures. Binary heaps is an important topic as it has many applications, such as heap sorting, priority queue, graph algorithms, and solving many sorting problems efficiently.

Binary heaps GATE questions as asked in many exams, including CAT, GATE CS, PDU CS, as well as in several interviews. Binary heaps online tests also form a part of various state and national level exams.

Important Binary heaps Topics for GATE CS

The data structure is a broad topic and has a vast syllabus. The major topics for binary heaps study material for GATE CS are given below.

Topic	Explanation
Min Heap	In the binary tree, the key at the root level must be the lowest among all other keys in different levels to be the Min Heap.
Max Heap	Contrary to the Min Heap, the key at the root level must be the largest among all other keys in different levels to be the Max Heap.
Level Order	To achieve array representation, we use a traversal method known as level order.

Tips to Solve Binary heaps Questions in GATE

The following are some tips that you can follow while solving binary heaps questions. Prepare for the topic by solving last year question papers well.

Binary heaps GATE questions and answers PDF are based on the binary trees and their specified properties to become a binary heap. Hence you should focus on the data structure section for programming topics.
Prepare excellent binary heaps notes for the GATE exam that contains all the details of the syntactic analysis. Those binary heaps GATE notes will help you in revisions.
Practise binary heaps online quizzes from online sites. These online tests will help you in preparation for the real exam.
Be clear with the binary heaps topics for GATE CS, as there are many repetitive topics such as Max Heap, getMin(), extractMin(), decreaseKey() and more.

Importance of Binary heaps in GATE Exam

Here's why the tree is an integral part of the GATECS and other competitive exams:

It checks whether you can make a binary tree (heap) and perform various functions on it. It also checks your grasp on the binary heaps GATE syllabus.
The weightage of this topic is 2% to 5% in the exam.
GATE requires you to acquire the basic knowledge of data structures and algorithms. It helps to maintain the accuracy of any main program.
These concepts are used in real-life situations as a software engineer/ data analyst, solving various data structure problems.

Most Recommended Books for Binary heaps for GATE

The following are some excellent books of binary heaps for computer science that can help you prepare for the binary heaps syllabus for GATE.

Book Title	Author
Binary Search Tree	Russell Jesse
Adaptive Binary Search Trees	Jonathan C Derryberry
Fundamentals of Data Structures in C	Ellis Horowitz, Sartaj Sahni, SA Freed

Why Prepare Binary heaps from BYJU'S Exam Prep?

BYJU'S Exam Prep is an online source of knowledge that provides excellent quality tutorials and questions regarding the topic. You can get all the preparatory materials like binary heaps quiz, binary heaps MCQ PDF, binary heaps MCQ questions, and more from BYJU'S Exam Prep website. These preparatory materials are a valuable source to test your exam preparation levels and boost your main exam performance. To prepare well for the exams, our experienced educators have designed binary heaps notes for CS and binary heaps notes for GATE PDF for students that help you in the revision. Binary heapsQuestions are a vital GATE exam topic covering computer science engineering syllabus. It checks the student's problem-solving skills using the tree data structure. Any student aiming to score maximum marks in the GATE exam should focus well on this part of the GATE syllabus.

FAQs:

Q. What is a binary heap?

Binary heaps are types of tree data structures that are complete with all the keys and stored in an array.

Q. What is the importance of a binary heap?

Binary heaps are suitable for solving complex problems like heap aborting, graph algorithms, finding k largest terms, merging k arrays and priority queues.

Q. What is the role of decrease key()?

The decrease key() enables you to decrease any key-value by keeping the time complexity of this operation is O(Logn).

Q. Who introduced binary heaps?

W.J. Williams introduced binary heaps in 1964 as a type of data structure for heap sorting.

Q.What role does extractMin() play in binary heaps?

extractMin() is used to remove any minimum element from the MinHeap by maintaining this operation's time complexity at O(1).