Lets 8x the stride.

What this C++ code-analysis question tests

This is a medium-difficulty code-reading question that probes your understanding of pointer arithmetic and memory layout in C++. Rather than asking you to write code, it demands that you trace execution carefully and predict the program's behaviour—a skill critical in performance-sensitive environments where bugs are expensive.

To answer correctly, you need to understand how stride, dereferencing, and type conversions interact, and be prepared to reason about what the compiler and runtime will actually do. The question rewards precise thinking over guessing; a single misunderstanding of pointer semantics or type casting can lead to the wrong conclusion.

• Pointer arithmetic and scaling by type size
• Type casting and its memory implications
• Undefined behaviour vs. defined behaviour in C++