Imagine that a group of relatives have arrived when you were alone in the house. You need to serve them some tea. Here, you should prepare a cup of tea by following different steps. 

On another occasion, you will have to make a fruit salad for a dessert or make a birthday cake. On all these occasions, you need to solve problems. Compare it with calculating the area of a rectangle during your mathematics lesson. 

When we have a certain aim, we do certain activities to achieve it. In our day to day life, we often solve problems. 

The problem needs to be analyzed well before solving it. Then you can get a good understanding of how to solve the problem. The process of problem solving has an input, an outcome and a process. 

Input - Things to be included to solve the problem. 

Process - Guidelines to be followed to solve the problem. 

Output - The result you get after solving the problem. 

Thus, you will understand that processing content according to a recipe is known as solving problems. 

Example: 1 

The input, process and output of preparing a fruit salad is as follows. 

Input - a variety of fruits 

Process - washing fruits, cutting fruit, mixing 

Output - Fruit salad 

Example: 2 

The input, Process and output of finding the areaof a rectangle are as follows:

Input - the length and the width of the rectangle 

Process - length x width 

Output - area of the rectangle 

If you are able to prepare a cup of tea, tie the shoe lace correctly, or put on the school uniform correctly, then you know how to use an algorithm. 

Algorithm 

A method that includes all the steps of solving a problem in order is known as an algorithm. 

Example 1 

Steps to create a fruits salad are as follows. 

It's important to write the steps sequentially in an algorithm. Think about what will happen if the sixth step is done as the second step. All the fruits mixed with sugar should be washed again. 

Therefore, it is important to write the steps of an algorithm sequentially. 

When writing an algorithm in a standard way, every algorithm must have a start and an end. Therefore, it is compulsory to include an initial step and a final step in writing and algorithm in addition to the normal steps.

Example 1 

The algorithm for making a chocolate cake 

Algorithm to find a area of a rectangle.

A flow chart is a graphical repesentation of the algorithmic steps. Here, standard symbols are used to show each action. 

Here the symbols related to start, end input out and process are used. 

Example 02