If you remove 3 strands of hair from your head, how many remain?How many hours will it santa claus take to travel from the north pole if he decides to visit the Taj Mahal,this year,for christmas...such questions are being asked my interviewers to gauge their candidate's analytical and logic skills.
Typical questions like "how is your experience related to this job?" and "why are you leaving you current job?" which have a usually have a fixed pattern of answers hardly challenge the candidate's analytical and logic skills which are need in today's corporate life believe the recruiters.
The 2 main concerns regarding these questions are :
1) The interview subject will feel pressured and not perform well and
2) The subject may have heard a similar question before.
Why called fermi puzzles?
In the 1940s and 1950s Enrico fermi used to challenge his university of chicago students with 'Fermi questions'.Named after him,a 'fermi problem' characteristically involves making logical assumptions to mostly hypothetical problems that seem difficult to calculate given amount of restricted information available in hand.
Some fermi questions for you:
Q:What is the annual requirement of golf balls in India?
ANS:The candidate’s approach involved identifying the number of golf courses and clubs in India, the number of golfers and an average consumption of golf balls per member. The methodology used in the formulation of the solution was so apt that it sounded more logical than the real answer itself and he was hired!”
Q:How much does India weigh?
ANS:We think of countries as having areas, but not volume. In this case, you need to measure the volume if you need a near accurate answer. One approach is to say that India is a wedge-shaped country whose volume extends from the surface all the way down to the center of the earth or you can even say that India, as part of the earth, is orbiting freely in space and is thus weightless. Both are reasonable ways of handling the question.
Q: the Axis powers won World War II, who came second?
ANS:The actual answer is simple, you either win a war or you lose!
Q:How many credit cards are there in the world?
Ans:There are approximately 6 billion people in the world.Lets assume that a third live in areas where they cannot get credit cards (eg:rural areas,poverty stricken areas,etc).Of the 4 billion remaining,lets assume 3 quarters are adults.of the 3 billion adults,a third doesn't carry credit (say they have bad credit cards or they don't believe in credit cards,are unemployed,etc).Of the 2 billion left who carry credit cards,each carries an average of 3 cards (visa,Master card,America express)
Result:There are 6 billion credit cards in the world.
Original article at :www.timesascent.in
Related aritcles : Brain training:Enhancing logic skills and reasoning.
Puzzle blog : http://goodtoknowit.blogspot.com/
Thursday, December 4, 2008
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