Allocating space for doubles

What this C++ memory-allocation question tests

This is an easy C++ question that probes your understanding of how memory is allocated and accessed for fundamental data types. It rewards familiarity with the language's pointer and array semantics, and how the compiler lays out data in memory.

To work through this problem, you need to trace through the code carefully, understand what operations are being performed on pointers and allocated memory, and predict the resulting output. This kind of question appears in screening rounds at quant firms because correctness in low-level C++ is non-negotiable when writing performance-critical systems.

• Dynamic memory allocation and deallocation
• Pointer arithmetic and indexing
• Sizeof operator and data type sizes