Let's talk about the elephants?

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continue to publish the answers to the most unusual and complex issues that often ask candidates to interview.How to paint the house?How heavy elephant?How do pellets M & amp; M's?The correct solution of these difficult problems - in our material!

Question № 1. tennis tournament in 127 participants.In the first round of the 126 players make up 63 pairs, the winners of which will go to the next round and another player goes into the second round without playing.In the next round - 64 players will play 32 games.How many games will need to determine the winner?

Here is the first puzzle game that has been given to the applicant at the interview.This event dates back to August 1957 and it happened in Palo Alto, California.Now there is the world-famous Silicon (Silicon) Valley - the world center of the IT-industry.Half a century ago there were located only a few small firms yutivshiesya garages.In one such modest offices William Shockley, Nobel Prize in Physics, the creator of the bipolar transistor, was interviewing a candidate - Jim Gibbons.The future "father" of Silicon Valley asked a young man who recently graduated from Stanford University, the problem about the tennis tournament, trying to assess the level of his intellect.Gibson thought less than a minute and gave the answer - 126 matches.Shockley was struck by the speed of solving the problem, and the applicant was recruited.

Despite the fact that this puzzle for more than half a century, some recruiters still use it when interviewing IT-specialists.The fact that a person with a standard way of thinking in solving this problem is to put the number of matches (64 + 32 + 16 + 8 + 4 + 2) and ultimately get the right answer.The man is not accustomed to thinking patterns, will give the same answer, but much faster and with a different justification.For example, Gibbons said that in this situation every player before he will knock out of the tournament must play at least one match.So, to determine the winner, 126 players have to lose, therefore, it will need 126 matches.

Question № 2. Suppose you have eight billiard balls.One of the balls a little harder than others, but it can only be determined by weighing.For what is the minimum number of weighing on the scales without weights, you can identify the heavier ball?

This task, but like many others, was born at Microsoft.As a rule, it is offered to solve IT-specialists to test the intellectual ability and the ability to reason logically.The man was not inclined to solve the puzzle, it will spend a fair amount of time and is likely to give the wrong answer.But the scholar will quickly find the right solution.

necessary to mentally divide the 8 ball into three parts: two to three balls, and in one - two.First, we weigh the first two parts.If one was harder then weigh any two balls out of it, either in the balance would be a heavy ball and a bowl outweighs the other, or the weight of the two balls will be the same - so heavy ball left unweighted.If the first two parts (in which three balls) were equal, then the heavy ball remains in the final part consisting of the two balls.We weigh them and find desired.

Question № 3. Draw a house!

It would seem - simple: take a marker and draw.One box - a wall, a second inside - a window on top of the triangle - the roof, a couple of bars and a wonderful home ready.Congratulations - you failed the task!

This question liked to ask candidates JB Blumenthal, create a spreadsheet Excel, working at Microsoft.According to him, the worst variant of the assignment - when a candidate immediately after you receive it up to the board and began to paint the house foundation - a square.Typically, this meant a failed job interview, and there are two reasons for this.Firstly, the house could be anything, but the applicant chooses the most that neither is a template option.Company, which is engaged in innovation, such an employee is not exactly necessary.And secondly, you can not begin to design the house, without first clarifying who will live in it, what is the budget where this house will stand and so on. Joel Spolsky, a colleague Blumenthal, seeing as the next candidate makes the final touches on her drawing "classic "country house, used to say:" In fact, you forgot to ask this, but is home to a family of fifteen giraffes. "

At the interview you may be asked to draw not only the house, but anything - objects, people, plants, and so on. F. Do not forget that the ultimate goal of your "Art" is one - to find out whether you are able to set specific objectives andalways remember about the final result.Therefore, never hesitate to ask in such cases eychary clarifying questions - they are you are only waiting for this!

Question № 4. estimate the weight of an elephant without weights.

Another issue giving the applicant an opportunity to think freely and offer a lot of the most sophisticated methods of solution.The answer to this question, there are many - you are only limited by your own imagination and knowledge of mathematics, physics, zoology and other sciences.The easiest option - to find the answer on the internet, but, as a rule, immediately recruiters caution that you do not have such a possibility, as well as to ask the other person.Meanwhile, it is possible, for example, offer to put an elephant in a cargo aircraft and a flight length of one hundred kilometers, and then find out consumption of kerosene.Then you have to make a flight on the same route, but without an elephant on board.Knowing the weight of the aircraft (and recruiters and told that the plane can not be weighed) and fuel consumption in both cases, it is possible to calculate the weight of an elephant.

as animals can be placed on an empty barge and mark the ship's draft.Then the elephant must be removed, and a barge filled with objects whose mass was originally known (for example, two-liter bottles of soda), exactly as long as the draft of the ship will not reach the mark made earlier.Multiplying the number of items on their weight, we get a lot of elephants.

Question № 5. How do pellets M & amp; M's?

wonderful example of how to create bizarre questions.The program managers at Microsoft discussed the questions asked them for an interview.Suddenly one of them thinking about Bean M & amp; M's and decided it would be a question to ask about it, and if specifically, why they have such a form perfectly smooth on all sides.Colleagues took it as a joke, but after some time, the question has become very popular at Microsoft, and then he began to ask, and in other companies.It is noteworthy that the author had no idea why the pills are smooth, however the question he asked applicants.This once again confirms the fact that recruiters are not always important final answer candidate - is much more important to assess the ability of professionals to quickly offer many solutions in unusual situations.

And yet - how do M & amp; M's?The fact is that if the nut simply poured on top of the chocolate and then coated with glaze and placed on a baking "dry", the shape of pellets would be asymmetrical - bottom candy would be flat and the top rounded.Guess how to actually make these sweets person not familiar with the confectionery business, is extremely difficult, which allows recruiters each time getting applicants from new and interesting answers.In fact, the production of pellets is the following: molded chocolate candies future core is placed in a large drum, inside of which operates the sprayer with the glaze.Because candy is constantly collide with each other and applied glaze layer is very thin, the surface turns out perfectly flat sweets.

Articles Source: rabota.ru