The three classical steps of any divide-and-conquer algorithm are
Ascan, sort, search
Bdivide, conquer, combine
Crecurse, return, retry
Dpartition, pivot, partition again
Answer & Solution
Correct answer: B. divide, conquer, combine
Divide (split input into sub-problems), Conquer (solve each, often recursively), Combine (merge sub-answers). This template covers merge sort, quick sort, binary search, FFT, Karatsuba. The other phrasings describe specific algorithms or invented sequences.
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