In order to verify the Binary Search Tree, Read the nodes in Inorder mode. Also at every step check if the current node value is less than the one previously found then exit the traversal as the items are not sorted.

Sadly I ran out of time for this question. But I e-mailed the response after my time was up. First create a small implementation of a binary tree, I did it in java with the standard implementation Nodes with left and right children as data points. Check whether the left child and right child have valid values, which is to say make sure all children on the right of a node have values greater than parents that they came from. The key thing that I missed during the interview was the fact that if you traverse once to the right, then once to the left, you have to make sure the value is between the max and min that you've encountered up to that point.

To find whether a binary tree is valid Binary search tree, do inorder traversal and check if the nodes are sorted.

int validate_BST(struct tnode *tree){ int ret1, ret2; if (tree == NULL) return 1; else { if (tree->left != NULL){ if (tree->data > tree-left->data){ ret1 = validate_BSR(tree->left); } else return 0; } if (tree->right != NULL) { if (tree->data right->data){ ret2 = vaidate_BSD(tree->right); } else return 0; } return (ret1 == 1 && ret2 == 1)? 1: 0; } return 0; }