The questions don't seem very hard at all when you are chilling at your computer with a cup of coffee. When they ask one of these as the last question of an intensive 2 hour interview and say "we have just one more question for you.." things can get a little stressful.
The Questions
1. What is 1644 divided by 8?
2. What is the angle of the hour and minute hand at 11:45?
2a. What is the angle of the hour and minute hand at 8:53?
3. How many cigars are sold in New York City each year?
3a. How much cigarette tax does New York City collect each year?
4. How many planes leave from LaGuardia each day?
5. A 12 by 12 by 12 cube is made up of smaller cubes of 1 unit each, similar to a large rubik's cube. The cube is dipped in paint, such that the outside surfaces are painted red. How many cubes have paint on them?
6. Walk me through a discounted cash flow model you built.
-How do you calculate free cash flow to the firm?
-How did you project these cash flows into the future?
-How do calculated weighted average cost of capital?
-How do you calculate terminal value?
-How do you calculate cost of equity?
7. How long is the Ganges River?
8. Assume the Brooklyn Bridge is the only river crossing in New York City, and the only two boroughs are Manhattan and Brooklyn. In an average 24 hour day, how many cars cross the bridge?
9. How many times does a number with a '3' in it occur between 0 and 500? For example, 3 counts as one instance, and 13 would count as the second instance.
What date (in MMDD:YYYY form) is closest to Jan 1, 2000 and is also a palindrome?
October 2 2001 (10 02 2001)
Why?!
After failing so hard on one of these questions that I literally heard the 'ding' of dismissal, I was pissed. I actually asked the interviewer why is this a good interview question?.. "We like to get a feel for how well candidates can think critically under pressure. Let me walk you out."
The Answers
1.Think 16 divided by 8 is 2. So 1600 divided by 8 is 200. 44 divided by 8 is 5.5. The answer is 205.5.
2. Its 90 degrees!.. Not really. I know a circle is 360 degrees. There are 12 sections of clock, so there are 30 degrees in each section. At 11:45 the hour hand is 75% of the way between the 11 and the 12, meaning there is 25% of the way to go. 50% of 30 is 15. So 25% of 30 is half of that, 7.5. I know that the angle between the minute hand at the 9 and the 12 is 90 degrees. 90 degrees minus the 7.5 is 82.5 degrees.
3. I know that around 20 million people live in New York. I'm going assume that only men smoke cigars and half of the population is men, which leaves us 10 million men. Assume that half of all men smoke at least one cigar a year, 50%. Assume that men who do smoke cigars buy an average of 5 a year. 25 million cigars.
4. Use the same reasoning as #2. Make some reasonable assumptions and do some mental math correctly.
5. If the outside layer is covered with paint, that means there is an inside cube that is not. A 12 cube minus 2 sides on each axis gives you an inner 10 cube. So the answer is the volume of the 12 cube minus the volume of the 10 cube. 12 times 12 is 144, times 12 is 1728. 10 times 10 times 10 is 1000. The answer is 728 blocks have paint on them.
6. If you never built a valuation model you should try it before applying to jobs that require you to.
7. I know from road tripping from New York to Florida that the length of the United States is approximately 2000 miles. I know the Mississippi river spans pretty much the length of the United States, from the mid-west, to Louisiana I would guess that the Ganges is similar, but probably smaller. I'd guess 10% smaller. I guessed 1800. Its actually 1569, per wikipedia.
8. Use the same reasoning as #2. Make some reasonable assumptions and do some mental math correctly. Often they will have Googled the correct answer ahead of time to see how close you actually get. Surprisingly, making some reasonable assumptions and doing the mental math correctly usually gets you close enough to impress the interviewer.
9. This one was interesting.
3 occurs in the units place once every ten numbers. 500 by 10 is 50.
3 occurs in the tens place ten times, every hundred numbers. 500/100*10 is 50
3 occurs in the hundreds place only 100 times between numbers 300 to 400. 100
The total number of instances of '3' in the set of 0 to 500 is 200 instances.
The Real Answer:
These questions are really tests of confidence and maturity. Really what they are asking is, do you know how to play the game? Are you mature and self assured enough to not freak out, and realize that they don't* expect you to actually get the right answer, but want to see you act with poise under pressure. They expect you to maintain enough composure to walk through the problem logically, and do some mental math quickly.
*They do expect you to get the math questions right (questions #1,2,5), especially if you have CPA/CFA/MBA next to your name.
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