Q31

An array $A$ of length $n$ with distinct elements is said to be bitonic if there is an index $1 \leq i \leq n$ such that $A[1 . . i]$ is sorted in the non-decreasing order and $A[i+1 \ldots n]$ is sorted in the non-increasing order. Which ONE of the following represents the best possible asymptotic bound for the worst-case number of comparisons by an algorithm that searches for an element in a bitonic array $A$ ?