Wednesday, November 16, 2011

15. What would you do if you just inherited a pizzeria from your uncle?

If I had no interest in or competency in the pizza making business, the best thing I could do is sell the business to an interested and experienced pizza restaurateur who might keep my uncle's traditions and therefore retain my uncle's clientele, in a lease and licensing arrangement or private equity investment deal, where I would have a small equity investment and receive a percentage of profits as the business continued. I would not sell the building or the land which the pizzeria occupied. I would retain the real property and the building.

If I had an interest and talent for making pizzas or if the inheritance stipulated that I was required to continue the business as an active participant, I would conduct market research and review the financial growth of the company. I would gather data on competitors in the area (to develop alliances so if an opportunity opened up to merge and create another branch location, I could do so readily), on menu items available among competitors (to copy what worked), and on pricing and costs from various suppliers (to keep prices on par for the market and to reduce costs without harming the product). The idea behind this option or approach is that I would conduct research to maximize profitability for the business I had inherited, while retaining the goodwill of my uncle's clientele.

14. How are M&M's made?

Cocoa powder, sugar, dried milk and other ingredients must be made into tiny round candies that will then be covered with a colored candy coating and stamped with a small white "m" so that the candy is recognizable as an M&M.

Too many tiny roundish candies must be produced for the cocoa mixture to be put into tiny molds. Rather than individual molds, which would be time-consuming, there must be a device that has gears and that rolls the material around until thousands of small round cocoa balls are created.

The colored candy shell is likely a liquid that is poured over the cocoa tiny balls then allowed to cool and harden. When the candies are stamped with a tiny “m” is very likely when they become flattened into the classic trademarked shape. Rather than a perfect ball you have a ball flattened on one side.

How is the white paint of that “m” applied? The colored candy liquid has a thin white layer underneath. When you bite into an M&M candy, there seems to be a thin white later between the candy colored coating and the cocoa center. Perhaps a tiny printing press type “m” is pressed onto each ball creating both the trademarked shape and the little white “m”…. Perhaps the printing press device that stamps the “m” removes the color that has just been applied leaving behind the white “m” of the white layer underneath the colored coating.

13. How many bottles of beer are [consumed] in the city over the week?

I have two suggestions for calculating an estimate of beer bottles consumed in the week.

The first approach involves estimating the population of the city, then the percentage that includes beer drinkers whether at home or out in restaurants and sports arenas. I would have to consider the events in the city for the week in question. Was it St. Patrick's Day? Was there a playoff basketball game? Is it Super Bowl week? Is it July 4th? Is it simply the time of year when beer drinking spikes? Could a poll be conducted for an appropriate sample size and then applied to the population of men and women in the city?

The second approach involves calculating the number of bottles sold out of grocery stores, corner shops and gas stations. Then calculating the receipts for beers sold at restaurants and sports arenas. The retail store number would only yield the number of beer bottles sold. We would then have to figure out how many of the bottles purchased were consumed. The restaurant and sports arena numbers would be a pretty close estimate of what was consumed. What is sold at a restaurant and sports arena is generally consumed rather than the beer purchased for the home which might be for consumption in two weeks or the next holiday. For the beers purchased in stores, we could use some known statistic about the average number of beers that a man consumes in a week and the average number of beers that a woman consumes in a week.

Both approaches have their flaws though right now the second approach might yield a number closer to the real number of beers consumed.

12. Why do you think only a small percentage of the population makes over $150K?

A small percentage of the population makes over $150K because employers are selective in distributing such salaries and require an investment of unique skill or time or talent in the acquisition of clients and revenues before giving such a salary. There are opportunities to make this salary in nearly any industry. Some industries will pay the salary to entry-level employees and other industries will pay the salary to highly experienced employees only. Some industries are accessible to a small percentage of the population because there are hurdles such as the years of education required or that employers value job candidates who have been educated at a few elite institutions. Many people would never choose a job paying a salary of $150K if they valued a certain amount of time with children and their husbands or wives and felt that the time and obligations required in exchange for the salary were a threat to what they valued more. Some people have goals for their lives that cannot be satisfied by a salary of $150K. Some people are dedicated to developing their skill at the piano, in comedy, at basketball or hockey, or in dance and the salary of $150K is irrelevant to them. They do not set a goal of achieving this salary. Some people have few educational opportunities or fail to take advantage of them. Some people are concerned with survival rather than with higher levels of achievement -- perhaps because of the circumstances of their family of origin. The world is full of people with different abilities, different values, making different choices and a salary of $150K is not a goal for many people.

11. What do wood and alcohol have in common?

1. Both wood and alcohol can be burned. Both are flammable.
2. Both wood and alcohol can be used to keep a person warm. Wood keeps a person warm when it is burned. Alcohol keeps a person warm when it is consumed intermittently in small doses.
3. Both wood and alcohol can be used to help an injured person. Wood can be used to construct makeshift binding for broken limbs. Alcohol can be used to clean wounds after removing debris.
4. Both wood and alcohol are the products of crops. Trees are planted for timber and harvested much like crops to distribute lumber and paper products. Alcohol can be made from wheat, corn and potatoes among other crops.
5. Both wood and alcohol have been used as energy sources for locomotion. Wood was used to power steam engines. Alcohol has been used to power cars.
6. Both wood and alcohol can be "cut." Alcohol is "cut" by adding water or soda or perhaps ice and waiting for the ice to melt. Wood is cut of course with an axe.
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The question simply seems to test creativity rather than factual knowledge or science. I've exhausted my creativity on this item.

10. How many traffic lights are in Manhattan?

Let's say that 150th street is the northernmost barrier for what we will call Manhattan.
We know that there are 12 Avenues going across.
We know that Central Park runs from approximately 59th to 110th street and eliminates 3 avenues across with a lovely park.
We know that below 1st street is an indeterminate number of streets (unless one has memorized maps or works in transportation).
So if we have to estimate the number of traffic lights in Manhattan, we first have to estimate the number of intersections and we know some intersections have stop signs not traffic lights. We also know that an intersection with traffic lights will have at least 8 traffic lights but some times as many as 16 individual traffic lights.
The question was not how many intersections but how many traffic lights.
If we have approximately 3000 intersections and 2/3 of those have lights and 1/3 do not but have stop signs (we simply know that not all intersections have traffic lights)....
And if 2000 intersections have an average of 12 traffic lights, then the approximate number of traffic lights in Manhattan is 24,000.

9. There are three boxes, one contains only apples, one contains only oranges, and one contains both apples and oranges. The boxes have been incorrectly labeled such that no label identifies the actual contents of the box it labels. Opening just one box, and without looking in the box, you take out one piece of fruit. By looking at the fruit, how can you immediately label all of the boxes correctly?

The box with "Apples only" will be mistakenly labeled AO or O.
The box with "Oranges only" will be mistakenly labeled AO or A.
The box with "Apples and  Oranges" will be mistakenly labeled O or A.
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If I stand in front of the box mislabeled O, I know that it is actually box AO or A.
If I stand in front of the box mislabeled A, I know that it is actually box AO or O.
If I stand in front of the box mislabeled AO, I know that it is actually box A or O.
If I choose either the A or O box, withdrawing the piece of fruit will be insufficient information because seeing either fruit will not tell me that I have the box with that one fruit or both fruits.
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The only box where seeing the fruit will tell me the contents conclusively is the box mislabeled AO.
If I withdraw an apple, then the box mislabeled AO can be correctly labeled A.
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Upon determining the contents of that one box, I can determine the contents of the other 2 boxes.
If box AO is now A, then I know that box O cannot be A (we already have A) and must be box AO.
The last box must be O.
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8. An apple costs 20 cents, an orange costs 40 cents, a grapefruit costs 60 cents. How much is a pear?

What do we know about pears in relation to the other fruits?
What do we know about the pricing of fruit in general?
We know that fruit is priced according to relative weight. We know that fruit is priced according to relative scarcity.
We know pears are generally larger and heavier than apples.
We know that pears are relative scarce when compared to apples. This scarcity will mean that buyers will pay a premium.
We know that the price of pears might have a greater correlation to the price of apples than to the price of citrus fruits oranges and grapefruits.
If an apple costs 20 cents, we can safely guess that a pear might be twice as expensive or 40 cents.
If a pear has greater relative scarcity when compared with not only an apple but also an orange , we can safely guess that a pear will be more expensive than an orange or more expensive than 40 cents, perhaps 50 cents.
We might have a difficult time pricing the pear without more information.
The fact that the grapefruit costs 60 cents is not very helpful because grapefruits are both less readily available than oranges and heavier.
I'm not sure about the relative scarcity of pears when compared to the availability of grapefruits.
Perhaps a pear also costs close to 60 cents.
I am able to estimate a cost of 50 to 65 cents based on knowledge of factors in pricing fruits and the relationships of the pear to the other fruits. I'm not able to price the pear more accurately than providing this range.

7. Given the numbers 1 to 1000, what is the minimum number of guesses needed to find a specific number if you are given the hint of higher or lower for each guess you make?

The minimum number of guesses required to determine a specific number depends in part on luck of the person guessing and the strategic approach of the person guessing.

In theory, the minimum number of guesses required could be as low as 1 guess if the person is extraordinarily lucky.

But the person will not likely be so lucky, so the person will guess strategically.

If the person guessing is risk averse, he might guess 500 and in response to the information that the correct number is higher or lower, he might constantly make his next guess the halfway point of the range he is trying to isolate. For example, his first guess might be 500 midway between 1 and 1000. He will be told higher or lower. Either way his second guess will be the midpoint between 1 and 500 or 501 and 1000. If he continues with this pattern of safely guessing the midpoint for the range he has isolated, he could guess as many as 9 or 10 times to determine the specific number.

How so? 1000/2 = 500/2 = 250/2 = 125/2 =62.5 = 31.25 etc.

Is 9 or 10 the minimum number of guesses that is possible for another approach? No. It might be wiser to change one crucial step, the first step. If he makes his first guess 750 or 250 rather than 500 he reduces the number of guesses required by at least 1. Why? He has started the guessing game with an asymmetrical position. It's not a random guess but a risk taken on the first move that can have tremendous rewards. If he guesses 750 and he is told higher in response, he has reduced his range of numbers significantly and even if he follows the method above exactly as before he has reduced his number of guesses by 1 or 2 at least. If he is unlucky and he is told "lower" in response" he hasn't lost very much. It's early in the game and the risk he took was worth taking as the first move in guessing. He is not likely to have increased the number of times he will have to guess. It is a low-risk, high-potential-return strategy.

6. Out of 25 horses, pick the fastest 3 horses. In each race, only 5 horses can run at the same time. What is the minimum number of races required?

I have to find the 3 fastest horses in a set of 25 horses.
Only 5 races can run in each race.
After these first 5 races, I have 5 fast horses.
But do I have the 5 fastest horses?
In theory, the 2nd or 3rd place finishers of any race, might be faster than the winner of a separate race. The calculation requires that we not have a contest where we proceed until we have only 3 winners but that we have contests or races until we can determine the 3 fastest horses (distinct and separate from the winners of subsequent races until we have reduced the "winners" to 3.

So after the first 5 races, I have 5 winners.
I would run a mixture of 2nd and 3rd place finishers (half of them) of each of the 5 races against one another to find one winner.
I would run a mixture of the remaining (the second half of) 2nd and 3rd place finishers in a 7th race to find another winner.
I would have 7 winners and I would need at least 2 more races to determine the 3 best horses in order to ensure that the appropriate mix of contestants headed off against one another.

I say 9 races total is the minimum number of races required to determine the fastest 3 horses without a stopwatch.

5. How many basketballs can you fit in this room?

Let's say the room is 12x12x12 feet.
Holding one's hands apart, a basketball is roughly 9 inches in diameter.
The volume is roughly 64 cubic inches.
The question does not require that I stack these basketballs neatly.
The question is how many basketballs can I fit in this room. So if there is prompt to fit as many basketballs as possible, and I can tuck them into one another like tightly fitted bricks, snugly and with slightly less rigidity in stacking, then in a room that is 6 feet x 6 feet with 12 foot ceilings....

To visualize this...
So picture a layer cake where I might have 16x16 basketballs in one layer or 256 basketballs.
Then 15x15 basketballs in the second layer or 225 basketballs.
Every odd layer 256 basketballs.
Every even layer 225 basketballs.
The ability to have 5 layers of each of 10 layers up to the ceiling if tightly stacked so that the apertures created by one layer of basketballs is filled.
256x5
225x5
2405 basketballs

This isn't nearly the same thing as if done live, in front of an interviewer, sweating with anxiety...... and still it's a terrible question testing poise as much as ability to use basic math and common sense. There is one clever answer to be delivered where if one is allowed to deflate each basketball then the number of basketballs that would fit in the room.... but I presume that the question is asked to see if a candidate can evaluate cubic feet and volume and perform basic math in terms of feet and inches.

4. Rate yourself on a scale of 1 to 10 how weird you are.

What makes this question intellectually interesting is not whether I'm accurate in measuring my weirdness but in determining whether I am capable of measuring my weirdness.

If I were weird, one could presume that I do not know, or do not acknowledge or give value to behavioral norms such that evaluating my own conduct would be skewed. It would be either difficult or impossible for me to self-evaluate if I were actually weird.

If I believe that my behavior meets to expectations for my age, race, background, educational history, then I might be able to rate myself at or near "1" for normal (where "10" is extremely weird).

Then what becomes intellectually interesting is whether the scale of 1 to 10 should be organized as a bell curve where 5 is normal and 10 is extremely weird in one direction (in attempts to deviate from social norms) and 1 is extremely weird in the other direction (in attempts to confirm to "perfect" expectations), because wouldn't a person who was married at the average age according to the census and had the average number of kids according to the census and did everything the way that could have been statistically predicted, be just a bit weird too?

I think the second scale where 5 is normal and 10 is one type of weird and 1 is another type of weird is the scale I'd like to use and I'd rate myself a 4, slightly towards trying to be conventional.

Buzzer. Time.

3. Explain to me what has happened in this country during the last 10 years?

The U.S. has become increasingly divded during the last 10 years. September 11, 2001 the country was one, united in grief, after terrorists boarded passenger jets that destroyed lives, the Twin Towers of the World Trade Center, the Pentagon and our sense of being immune/protected. The subsequent war and reasons for going to war as well as expenditures on the war divided the country. The boom of 2003-2007 led to a recession and unemployment rate that again divided the country. The repackaging of consumer debt and mortgages was controversial as banks appeared to be betting against ordinary citizens to default, and extending mortgages to borrowers with shaky creditworthiness in a way that virtually guaranteed a high rate of default. The recession of 2008, 2009, 2010 divided the country politically and economically. We bickered about solutions. Some engaged in "class warfare." As an immigrant to the U.S. I was unhappy to see this seeming injury (not death) of the American Dream. I understood the Occupy Wall Street protestors who started their campaigns in mid-September 2011 nearly 10 years after a different crisis in downtown New York had united us.

Went over 5 minutes but the question deserved more time.

2. What is the philosophy of martial arts?

Martial arts was developed in the Far East. For reasons unknown to me, they developed a method of combat involving evasive maneuvers and the ability to use the force of an opponent against him to promote a fall (as in judo) or to throw him off balance and counterstrike (any of the martial arts). Was this weapon-free style of combat developed because these people were often caught by surprise by invading forces? without time to gather weapons before the confrontation? This weapons-free method of fighting enables an unarmed person to appear harmless when approaching but able to scare off or defeat an attacker. There is more than an element of surprise because martial arts is well known for enabling smaller opponents to defeat larger opponents. So with weapons-free and the capacity of a smaller man to defeat a large one, we have a situation where the seemingly powerless is quite powerful and dangerous. The philosophy of martial arts might be embodied in a single word: stealth. This is consistent with subtle and quiet movements, lack of need for weaponry, the danger of an underestimated smaller opponent. Perhaps stealth power is the underlying philosophy of the martial arts. Again... time....

1. If you were shrunk to the size of a pencil and put in a blender, how would you get out?

A pencil is about 7 or 8 inches in length. A blender (at least the container portion) is about 10 inches high. I don't think a blender is a full 12 inches deep (again the container which is where mini-me is captured). If I am 7.5 inches tall (and I have the same proportions I have now 5'8"), my armspan is enough to grab the rim of the blender and, with appropriate fitness/strength, pull myself (mini-me) up. The rim of the blender would be at my waist and I can fling one leg over the side, then another leg, then sit on the rim and contemplate how to jump down safely to the counter. The jump down is where it gets tricky and I could injure myself. To avoid risk of injury, I should jump ready to tumble into a somersault. There is also risk of injury in falling onto the blades of the blender as I make my escape, so I should tear off a bit of clothing to wrap around my hands to reduce slippage on the glass rim and, if I have a jacket, cover up the blades of the blender so that should I fall, I can make a second attempt to escape. Business is about anticipation of risk and risk avoidance through planning.

Is the puzzle deceptively easy? Am I right about the proportions of a pencil and blender. If a person is the height of a pencil, the length of their arms should give them the ability to maneuver as I've described. Oops, time....

Introduction: Ridiculously Hard Questions

Yes, I'm late in answering these 15 Ridiculous Hard Interview Questions, which were posted on the Huffington Post website in December 2010. I saw the Huffington Post article today and thought it would be enjoyable to write down, after 5 minutes for each, an answer for each question. I'll answer these questions 1 thru 15 in "real time" meaning that the blog posting times will indicate when each question was completed. I will take short breaks after a couple of questions and at some point I must break for dinner.

Why would I answer these questions? Because these are not ridiculously hard questions. These are fun tests of intelligence or problem-solving ability. These questions test how someone finds an answer, plans a course of action, or faces a tiny problem. If you can't think your way through one of these puzzles, how will you handle more challenging projects or clients? As such, these are "perfect" questions, if not for measuring cleverness and curiosity, then at least for measuring eagerness to face of a challenge.

Why would I post these answers online? Because I wanted to post my answers in the comments section but the message board for the article is closed. I would look forward to hearing from a hiring manager (see About Me section) and getting 2 or 3 more questions (or at least one more).
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2010/12/30/job-interview-questions_n_802658.html#s217038&title=Goldman_Sachs_

Awaiting the 16th question,
Ariel Marie J