IGCSE Algorithms and Pseudocode Foundations for G8 Practice Exam 2026 - Free Practice Questions and Exam Study Guide

The concept here is identifying the largest value in a collection. The term for that operation is maximum — the maximum element is the value that is greater than or equal to every other value in the set. For example, in a list like 3, 12, 7, 5, the maximum is 12. This is different from minimum, which would be the smallest value; average, which is a single value representing the center of the data; and length, which is how many items are in the collection. In an algorithm, you typically scan through all items, keeping track of the largest value seen so far, and update it whenever you encounter a larger one. The final tracked value is the maximum.