Suppose were debugging a Quicksort implementation that is supposed to sort an array in ascending order. After the first partition step has been completed, the contents of the array are in the following order [3 9 15 14 17 24 22 20], Which of the following statements is correct about the partition step? Select one:

a. The pivot could have been 14, but could not have been 17

b. Neither 14 nor 17 could have been the pivot

c. The pivot could have been either 14 or 17

d. The pivot could have been 17, but could not have been 14