was it necessary to merge them?
In this question, the array is orignally a single array, then is broken up into "SUB ARRAY" pairs for the purpose of the "student's non standard sorting method"
In my opinion it wasn't necessary to merge an array that was already a single array.
I believe that the breaking up of the parts of the array was just to highlight how the sorting method worked.
If you think about it this is quite similar to an insertion or selection sort in the fact that you classify part of the array as sorted, which could be illustrated in a diagram by making it seem as two arrays, although it is essentially one array.
Just my opinion on the question... and it seems that after numerous debates with people at my school it is a correct assumption.
What are your thoughts here?