Computer Science I / Minimisation and Canonical Forms
Practice question · Select all that apply

A Karnaugh map is being simplified. Select every group size below that is a legal group in a K-map.

Hints
  1. Every legal group eliminates a whole number of variables, and each variable eliminated halves the number of literals.
  2. Write out the permitted sizes as a doubling sequence starting from a single cell.
Show the answer
  • A. A group of 1 cell
  • C. A group of 2 cells
  • D. A group of 4 cells
  • E. A group of 8 cells
Why

Legal groups contain 1, 2, 4, 8, ... cells, powers of two, because each doubling removes exactly one variable from the term. A group of 3 or 6 does not correspond to any product term at all, so circling one produces an expression that is simply wrong; that is the most common K-map error, along with missing the wrap-around adjacency between opposite edges.

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