State the purpose of the A* and Dijkstra's algorithms.

Mark scheme

Marking points from the official mark scheme (May/June 2025). The mark or mark type is shown in brackets.

1. [1] To find the path between two points on a graph using the algorithm.
2. [2] One mark per point (Max 2)
3. MP1 A* tries to find a better path (between two points) by using a heuristic function // A* finds the adjacent route with the shortest path and continues this until the destination is reached
4. MP2 Dijkstra's just explores all possible routes.
5. MP3 The heuristic function on the A* algorithm gives priority to nodes that are supposed to be better than others / less costly than others.
6. MP4 Dijkstra's algorithm cannot work with negative values/weights //A* algorithm can work with negative values/weights.
7. [3] One mark for each mark point (Max 3)
8. MP1 Unsupervised learning uses algorithms to analyse / cluster
9. MP2 unlabelled data sets
10. MP3 They discover hidden patterns / data groupings / clusters without the need for human intervention.
11. MP4 It is able to discover similarities and differences in data / information.