Test Pattern for microsoft interview
· Puzzles, Riddles, etc. <http://localhost/papers/microsoft1.htm>
· Programming Questions <http://localhost/papers/microsoft2.htm>
· Computer Networks, Databases, etc. <http://localhost/papers/microsoft3.htm>
· Computer Architecture <http://localhost/papers/microsoft4.htm>
Puzzles, Riddles & Others
0. Classic: If a bear walks one mile south, turns left & walks one mile to the east & then turns left again & walks one mile north & arrives at its original position, what is the color of the bear.
ANS. The color of the bear is trivial. The possible solutions to it are interesting. In addition to the trivial north pole, there are additional circles near south pole. Think it out.
* 1. Given a rectangular (cuboidal for the puritans) cake with a rectangular piece removed (any size or orientation), how would you cut the remainder of the cake into two equal halves with one straight cut of a knife?
ANS. Join the centers of the original & the removed rectangle. It works for cuboids too! BTW, I have been getting many questions asking why a horizontal slice across the middle will not do. Please note the "any size or orientation" in the question! Don't get boxed in by the way you cut your birthday cake :) Think out of the box.
2. There are 3 baskets. one of them have apples, one has oranges only & the other has mixture of apples & oranges. The labels on their baskets always lie. (i.e. if the label says oranges, you are sure that it doesn't have oranges only,it could be a mixture) The task is to pick one basket & pick only one fruit from it & then correctly label all the three baskets.
HINT. There are only two combinations of distributions in which ALL the baskets have wrong labels. By picking a fruit from the one labeled MIXTURE, it is possible to tell what the other two baskets have.
3. You have 8 balls. One of them is defective & weighs less than others. You have a balance to measure balls against each other. In 2 weighings how do you find the defective one?
4. Why is a manhole cover round?
HINT. The diagonal of a square hole is larger than the side of a cover!
Alternate answers: 1. Round covers can be transported by one person, because they can be rolled on their edge. 2. A round cover doesn't need to be rotated to fit over a hole.
5. How many cars are there in the USA?
6. You've got someone working for you for seven days & a gold bar to pay them. The gold bar is segmented into seven connected pieces. You must give them a piece of gold at the end of every day. If you are only allowed to make two breaks in the gold bar, how do you pay your worker?
7. One train leaves Los Angeles at 15mph heading for New York. Another train leaves from New York at 20mph heading for Los Angeles on the same track. If a bird, flying at 25mph, leaves from Los Angeles at the same time as the train & flies back & forth between the two trains until they collide, how far will the bird have traveled?
HINT. Think relative speed of the trains.
8. You have two jars, 50 red marbles & 50 blue marbles. A jar will be picked at random, & then a marble will be picked from the jar. Placing all of the marbles in the jars, how can you maximize the chances of a red marble being picked? What are the exact odds of getting a red marble using your scheme?
9. Imagine you are standing in front of a mirror, facing it. Raise your left hand. Raise your right hand. Look at your reflection. When you raise your left hand your reflection raises what appears to be his right hand. But when you tilt your head up, your reflection does too, & does not appear to tilt his/her head down. Why is it that the mirror appears to reverse left & right, but not up & down?
10. You have 5 jars of pills. Each pill weighs 10 gram, except for contaminated pills contained in one jar, where each pill weighs 9 gm. Given a scale, how could you tell which jar had the contaminated pills in just one measurement?
ANS. 1. Mark the jars with numbers 1, 2, 3, 4, & 5.
2. Take 1 pill from jar 1, take 2 pills from jar 2, take 3 pills from jar 3, take 4 pills from jar 4 & take 5 pills from jar 5.
3. Put all of them on the scale at once & take the measurement.
4. Now, subtract the measurement from 150 ( 1*10 + 2*10 + 3*10 + 4*10 + 5*10)
5. The result will give you the jar number which has contaminated pill.
11. If you had an infinite supply of water & a 5 quart & 3 quart pail, how would you measure exactly 4 quarts?
12. You have a bucket of jelly beans. Some are red, some are blue, & some green. With your eyes closed, pick out 2 of a like color. How many do you have to grab to be sure you have 2 of the same?
13. Which way should the key turn in a car door to unlock it?
14. If you could remove any of the 50 states, which state would it be & why?
15. There are four dogs/ants/people at four corners of a square of unit distance. At the same instant all of them start running with unit speed towards the person on their clockwise direction & will always run towards that target. How long does it take for them to meet & where?
HINT. They will meet in the center & the distance covered by them is independent of the path they actually take (a spiral).
16. (from Tara Hovel) A helicopter drops two trains, each on a parachute, onto a straight infinite railway line. There is an undefined distance between the two trains. Each faces the same direction, & upon landing, the parachute attached to each train falls to the ground next to the train & detaches. Each train has a microchip that controls its motion. The chips are identical. There is no way for the trains to know where they are. You need to write the code in the chip to make the trains bump into each other. Each line of code takes a single clock cycle to execute.
You can use the following commands (& only these);
MF - moves the train forward
MB - moves the train backward
IF (P) - conditional that's satisfied if the train is next to a parachute. There is no "then" to this IF statement.
GOTO
ANS.
A: MF
IF (P)
GOTO B
GOTO A
-----
B: MF
GOTO B
Explanation: The first line simply gets them off the parachutes. You need to get the trains off their parachutes so the back train can find the front train's parachute, creating a special condition that will allow it to break out of the code they both have to follow initially. They both loop through A: until the back train finds the front train's parachute, at which point it goes to B: & gets stuck in that loop. The front train still hasn't found a parachute, so it keeps in the A loop. Because each line of code takes a "clock cycle" to execute, it takes longer to execute the A loop than the B loop, therefore the back train (running in the B loop) will catch up to the front train.
Personality
It is best to read some website or a book for questions like these.
1. Tell me the courses you liked & why did you like them.
2. Give an instance in your life in which you were faced with a problem & you tackled it successfully.
3. What is your ideal working environment.
4. Why do you think you are smart.
5. Questions on the projects listed on the Resume.
6. Do you want to know any thing about the company.( Try to ask some relevant & interesting question).
7. How long do you want to stay in USA & why (I guess non-citizens get this)?
8. What is your geographical preference?
9. What are your expectations from the job.
READ ANSWER and EXPLANATION
