gen-explain-quicksort-and-its-pivot-as-you-would-to-a-capable-st-ab92

Explain quicksort and its pivot as you would to a capable student, in 3-4 sentences.

Quicksort is a divide-and-conquer sorting algorithm that works by selecting a "pivot" element from the array and partitioning the other elements into two groups: those less than the pivot go to the left, and those greater go to the right. The pivot acts as a reference point that ends up in its final sorted position after each partition step. You then recursively apply the same process to the left and right sub-arrays until everything is sorted. The choice of pivot (first element, last element, random, or median) can significantly affect performance, with poor choices potentially leading to slow O(n²) behavior instead of the typical O(n log n).