Are you smart enough to work at Google by
William Poundstone
[Trick questions, Zen-like riddles, insanely
difficult puzzles, and other devious interviewing technique you need to know to
get a job anywhere in the new economy]
What number comes next?
10,90, 60,90,70,66,
Forget math. Spell out the numbers in the plain English, which gives the following
ten(3), nine(4), sixty(5), ninety(6),
seventy(7), sixty-six (8),
The numbers are in order of how many letters are
in their names. The next number should have 9 letters in it. Secondly, look
more closely. Ten is not the only number you can spell with three letters.
There is one, two and six, but ten is the largest one in three letter block.
Same with the rest of the numbers listed in the series. If both conditions
needs to meet, the second better answer is ninety-six (if the number should be
less than 100). If there is no limitation, the best answer is ten googol.
The word - googole - appeared in the 1940 book
that Kasner wrote with James Newman, Mathematics and Imagination. Nine-year old
Milton Sirotta and his brother Edwin were talking a stroll one day with their
uncle in the New Jersey Palisades. The uncle was Edward Kasner, a Columbia
mathematician already what famous as the first Jew to gain tenure in the
science at that Ivy league institution. Kasner entertained the boys by talking
about a topic calculated to appeal to bookish nine-year olds, namely the number
that could be written as a ‘1’ followed by 100 zeros. Kasner challenged his
nephew to invent a name for the number. Milton’s suggestion was ‘googol’.
The story behind Google’s google name.
Sean (Anderson) and Larry (Page) were in their
office, using the whiteboard, trying to think up aa good name - something that
related to the indexing of an immense amount to data. Sean verbally suggested
the googolplex and Larry respond verbally with the shortened form, googol (both
words are specific large numbers - Googolplex is 10 raised to the power of
googol). Sean was seated at his computer so he executed a search of the
internet domain name registry database to see it the newly suggested name was
still available for registration and use. Sean is not an infallible speller,
and he made the mistake of searching for the name spelled as google.com which he
found ot be available. Larry liked the name and within hours, he took the step
of registering the name google.com for himself and Sergey.
What comes next in the series?
SSS, SCC, C, SC
The series is the letters of the alphabet in a
silly code. A as a capital letter, is made of three straight lines. Encode that
as SS. B can be written as one straight line and two curved (SCC). C has single
curve, D has one straight and one curve (SC). So E being the next letter, which
is four straight lines, the next sequence is SSSS
When there is a wind blowing, does a round-trip
by plan take more time, less time or the same?
In general, you wouldn’t expect the wind to be
following exactly in the direction of travel, nor exactly at ninety degrees to
it. The direction would be somewhere in between. You can break the wind’s
velocity down into headwind-tailwind and crosswind components. The point is
that both components increase the round-trip time. The best wind for round-trip
air travelers is no wind at all.
You and your neighbor are holding yard sales on the same day.
Both of you plan to sell the exact same item. You plan to put your item on sale
for $100. The neighbor had informed you that he is going to put his on sale for
$40. The items are in identical condition. What do you, assuming you are not on
especially friendly with this neighbor?
The best answer is buy neighbor's item and hide
your item until the first one sells,. then put the second item on sale at a
reduced price, according to how late in the day it is.
[Google does spell checking: it is not based on
dictionaries; it is based on word usage statistics of the entire internet.,
which is why Google knows how to correct my name, misspelled and Microsoft Word
does not.]
You want to have Tim’s number, but you cannot
ask him directly. Ann is sitting between you and Tim can pass your note once
and Tim can also do the same. Ann who sitting in the middle, should not get to
know Tim’s number while passing the message across. What is the strategy.
Answer: Tim, call my phone using the number you
got.
If you had a stack of pennies as tall as the
Empire state building, could you fit them all in one room?
You have ten thousand Apache servers, and one
day to generate $1 million. What do you do?
There are two rabbits, speedy and Sluggo. When
they run a 100 meter race, Speedy crosses the finish line while Sluggo ist at
90 meter mark. (Both run at a constant speed). Now we match up in a handicapped
race. Speedy has to start from 10 meters behind the start (and run 110 meters)
while Sluggo starts at the usual mark and runs 100 meters. Who will win?
Answer: Speedy.
There are three women in bathing suites. Two are
sad and one is happy. The sad women are smiling. The happy woman is crying.
Explain the situation.
Answer: They are beauty contestants.
What is the next number in the series
1
1 1
2 1
1 2 1 1
1 1 1 2 2 1
Answer: This is the look and say sequence. described by the mathematician John Horton Conway in 1986. Except for the first
line, each inventories the line above it. Second line says, there is 1 one. 3rd
line says, there are 2 ones. 4th line says, there is 1 two and there is 1 one.
5th line says, 1 one, 1 two, 2 ones. So the next in series should be 3 1 2 2 1
1 (3 ones, 1 two, 2 ones).
1. How do you put a giraffe into a refrigerator?
Correct Answer: Open the refrigerator, put in the giraffe, and close the door.
This question tests whether you tend to do simple things in an overly
complicated way.
2. How do you put an elephant into a refrigerator?
Did you say, Open the refrigerator, put in the
elephant, and close the refrigerator?
Wrong Answer.
Correct Answer: Open the refrigerator, take out the giraffe, put in the elephant
and close the door. This tests your ability to think through the repercussions
of your previous actions.
3. The Lion King is hosting an animal
conference. All the animals attend.... except one. Which animal does not
attend?
Correct Answer: The Elephant. The elephant is in the refrigerator. You just put
him in there. This tests your memory.
Okay, even if you did not answer the first three
questions correctly, you still have one more chance to show your true
abilities.
4. There is a river you must cross but it is
used by crocodiles, and you do not have a boat. How do you manage it?
Correct Answer: You jump into the river and swim across. Have you not been
listening? All the crocodiles are attending the Animal Meeting. This tests
whether you learn quickly from your mistakes.
Ref links
This was a course taught at MIT by Bill Jacobs
and Curtis Fonger, focusing on technical questions for software engineers.
Other Quiz questions:
100 prisoners are each locked in a room
Who Is the Surgeon?
Monty Hall problem
Dining philosophers problem
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