Assess students' ability to analyze and compare quicksort, mergesort, heapsort, and insertion sort by evaluating time complexity (best/average/worst), space complexity, stability, and practical performance trade-offs; include effects of input patterns (random, nearly sorted, reversed), pivot/implementation choices, and hybrid strategies (e.g., switching to insertion sort for small arrays). Questions should require justification of algorithm choice for given scenarios, prediction of empirical runtimes from theoretical properties, and interpretation of when theoretical bounds diverge from observed performance.