a. \( \begin{array}{l}\text { CLS } \\ P=1 \\ \text { FOR } A=1 \text { TO } 5 \\ M=P \star A \\ \text { NEXT A } \\ \text { PRINT }{ }^{\prime} P \\ \text { END } \\ \text { Questions: } \\ \text { i. What will be the result if the user } \\ \text { inputs the number } 2 \text { ? } \\ \text { ii. What happens if the program line } \\ \text { NEXT A is removed? }\end{array} \) ?

We’re given the following BASIC‐like program:   CLS   P = 1   FOR A = 1 TO 5     M = P * A   NEXT A   PRINT P   END Notice two points: 1. The variable P is set to 1 right at the start, and that value is never changed inside the loop (only the variable M is computed as P * A). 2. The program prints P at the end. Now, let’s answer the two questions: ──────────────────────────── Question i. What will be the result if the user inputs the number 2? A common variation of such a program is to let the user supply a value for P instead of hard‐coding it to 1. In that case, if the user enters 2, you would have:   P = 2 Then, inside the loop for A = 1 to 5, the program computes M = 2 * A for each A value. However, since nothing is done with M (it isn’t printed or stored back into P) and P remains unchanged, the final PRINT statement simply outputs the value of P. Thus, if the user inputs 2, the program will output 2. ──────────────────────────── Question ii. What happens if the program line NEXT A is removed? In BASIC the FOR…NEXT loop is structured so that every FOR statement must have a corresponding NEXT (with the same loop variable) to indicate the end of the loop body. Removing NEXT A breaks this structure. Here’s what typically happens: • The interpreter will not find the proper termination for the FOR loop, which usually causes a syntax error or runtime error. • In some BASIC dialects the program may even go into an unintended state (for example an infinite loop) because it never knows when to exit the loop. Thus, if you remove the NEXT A line, the program will not run properly and you will likely get an error message indicating that the FOR…NEXT loop is not correctly terminated. ──────────────────────────── Summary Answer: i. If the user inputs 2 (assuming that value is used to set P), then after running the loop (which only calculates M = 2 * A), the program prints the unchanged P value. Therefore, the output will be 2. ii. Omitting the NEXT A line causes the FOR loop to be incomplete. Consequently, the program will either produce a syntax (or runtime) error or fail to end the loop properly, and it won’t execute as intended.