some psychological questions

ed6hellsfresh

these are the new types of interview techniques they are using to see how a persons thought processes work see if you can get them right

1 a bat and ball together cost €1.10 to produce. the bat costs 1 euro more to produce than the ball how much does the ball cost to produce

2 it takes 5 spinning machines 5 minutes to make 5 wool spools.
how long does it take 100 machines to make 100 spools?

3 water lillie growing in a pond double in size every day. if it took the lillies 48 days to fully cover the pond, after how many days was it half covered.


look easy don't they, it surprising how many get them wrong

Dinner

Right, Well I have my answers. But what are the real ones?

ed6hellsfresh

0.05 5 47 get them?

Dinner

ed6hellsfresh wrote:

0.05 5 47 get them?

Got the first and the last. Didnt get the second. I said 500

LadyJ

Yeah got the first and second but not the third

[Jackass]

ball costs 5C...20 minutes for spinning machienes.....47 days to cover pond.

D'oh got second one wrong.

skywalker

yep got the 3 of them, they were easily reasoned out when you stop & think about them.

Bacchus

Got em all...
€0.05
5 minutes
47

What did I win?

da_deadman

Got them all...€0.05 - 5 minutes - 47 days
so, did I get the job?

Sleepy

initial hunch was to go for 10c for the ball but I caught myself before checking the answers... got the other right pretty quickly

miss_gonzo

congrats
you made me feel stupid


****ing math

Baz_

Why do you describe them as psychological questions, they are all simple arithmetic puzzles?

skipn_easy

Questions like these are often asked at microsoft interviews, as a means to get people to look beyond the obvious answers. The book How Would You Move Mount Fuji is quite an interesting discussion on the philosophies behind this type of interviewing as a lot of people really don't like these kind of questions.

Examples of more pyschological (maybe) questions, with less well defined correct answers are like: why are manhole covers round or how many piano tuners are there in the world, or how would you move mount fuji?

They can be quite good questions for asking software developers as they expose certain key skills like problem solving and design. For example, asking which state would you remove from the United States there are lots of different ways you can answer the question and an interviewer would be looking at how the interviewee thought it through, as opposed to them saying 'thats a stupid question' or 'i dunno'

Crucifix

Yarr, I got them all right. But there's nothing psychological if you don't tell us what the way we answered them means.

Scraggs

Guess i dont get the job absolutely none right!!

bus77

That first one is doing my head in! 0.05????

kasintahan

That was fun.

I got them all, but I did need to think about the first two (ie check my answers by reversing them).

skipn_easy

If the ball is 0.05 then the bat has to be 1 euro more which is 1.05... and together they add up to 1.10.

bus77

sigh....

Squall

Got them all

DaDa

Alternate answer to number 1:

the ball costs €1 less to produce than the bat

Deadwing

i f*cking hate those kind of bent ass questions

Bottle_of_Smoke

skipn_easy wrote:

If the ball is 0.05 then the bat has to be 1 euro more which is 1.05... and together they add up to 1.10.

Couldn't work that one out, well 2 outta 3 aint bad!

LadyJ

Bottle_of_Smoke wrote:

Couldn't work that one out, well 2 outta 3 aint bad!

There are some things food science can't teach you!

Naos

Got them all, just had to think about the first for a few..

Hobbes

2. 5 minutes.

3. 47 days.

is_that_so

Ok , got 2 out of 3

So does this make me unemployable?

Some people can't do these types of questions anyway and you could be losing the best CEO ever basing part of the interview on a few "trick" questions.

Reminds me of a job interview I had once delivered by two spotty people which was a list of 20 questions about computers, CMOS, BIOS and a few other hardware bits and pieces. The job related to languages and computers :rolleyes:

IMHO questions that put people intentionally on the defensive show a laziness and lack of interview skills on the part of the interviewer and give a poor impression of the company.

Pepe LeFrits

I'm hired, hurrah!

the_syco

ed6hellsfresh wrote:

these are the new types of interview techniques they are using to see how a persons thought processes work see if you can get them right

1 a bat and ball together cost €1.10 to produce. the bat costs 1 euro more to produce than the ball how much does the ball cost to produce

2 it takes 5 spinning machines 5 minutes to make 5 wool spools.
how long does it take 100 machines to make 100 spools?

3 water lillie growing in a pond double in size every day. if it took the lillies 48 days to fully cover the pond, after how many days was it half covered.


look easy don't they, it surprising how many get them wrong

1) ball costs 5 cents

2) 5 minutes.

3) 47 days.

ed6hellsfresh

Baz_ wrote:

Why do you describe them as psychological questions, they are all simple arithmetic puzzles?

yeh sorry bout that they are psychological in the way they show the difference between the people who think things out quickly and those who take time/reasoning in their decisions.

Cake Fiend

ed6hellsfresh wrote:

yeh sorry bout that they are psychological in the way they show the difference between the people who think things out quickly and those who take time/reasoning in their decisions.

I doubt that's anything to do with psychology, more different types of intelligence and left/right-brain logic differences.


So, how many piano tuners are there anyway?

ed6hellsfresh

Sico wrote:

I doubt that's anything to do with psychology more different types of intelligence and left/right-brain logic differences.
So, how many piano tuners are there anyway?

i'm pretty sure those two things are heavily linked. i read about this in the indo and thats what they described them as

Bottle_of_Smoke

LadyJ wrote:

There are some things food science can't teach you!

Well there's some things that ..... oh yeah . . . sorry.

Baz_

hmmm...

I suppose if they know which side of your brain is dominant by how quickly you answer these questions then they would be psychologically revealing, never abstracted it out to that level earlier.

Does this mean, however, that we're fast approaching discrimination based upon which side of your brain works best?

I can picture it now "Right all you lefties over to the right for the cushy jobs, oh, and all you rights, you can all just **** off and die."*

Baz_

*This paragraph is a work of pure fiction, any similarities to reality past, present or future are entirely coincidental. The author of this post neither knows nor cares which side of the brain is responsible for strength or weakness in any area of intellectual prowess. Money back guarantee valid for thirty days. This does not affect your statutory rights.

skipn_easy

Sico wrote:

So, how many piano tuners are there anyway?

I don't remember the exact answer, but it is a general question about how well you can estimate things (which I'm not very good at). You start out with the number of pianos per household, the likelihood that a household has a piano (say mostly upper class households which are about whatever, 15% of the american population assuming we're in america), then you can estimate how many times you think you would need to tune a piano... say once a year on average (not knowing anything about pianos). In this method you can come up with a semi-reasonable estimation of how many pianos need to be tuned in a year in america (and can extrapulate to the world) After that, you would work out that if a piano tuner takes about 2 hours to tune a piano + travel to and from the location he might tune 15-20 pianos in a week which would mean he would tune 800 pianos in a year probably, and you can then work out how many piano tuners there would be assuming there are enough piano tuners to tune all the pianos in the world. Or something.... It makes a certain amount of sense, but it does require a bit of faith if thats the right word

skipn_easy

Baz_ wrote:

hmmm...

Does this mean, however, that we're fast approaching discrimination based upon which side of your brain works best?

Well, every interview is discriminating in some way...

However there is quite a bit of negative talk about how these kind of interviews provoke a sort've elite club of people that are willing to jump through those kind of hoops to solve problems - i guess its reasonably fair for a company to only take on the people that think in the way they want them to, but it doesn't seem like the best idea to only have people of a certain type either.

Baz_

How about, and I'm sure the Micro$oft marketer would love this, as many as the market dictates are needed, while still ensuring that the business remains profitable.

Baz_

skipn_easy wrote:

but it doesn't seem like the best idea to only have people of a certain type either.

Jesus, no!

You'd have all the socially inept geeks in one company, and all the attention seeking talkers in another, and never the twain shall meet.

I know I'm taking it to the extreme in both them posts above, but surely variety hasn't stopped being the spice of life just yet...

the_syco

Sico wrote:

more different types of intelligence and left/right-brain logic differences.

A new way to legaly sexualy discriminate?

Baz_

the_syco wrote:

A new way to legaly sexualy discriminate?

While I remember something about men and women in general thinking with the same side of the brain as their sexual peers, I'm also pretty sure that exceptions to the geneal rule are also very common... so yes and no.

MooShop

ed6hellsfresh wrote:

0.05 5 47 get them?

yeah got them all, not that bad when you put a bit of thought in to it and not say the first thing that comes in to your head

Scarinae

I got them, but that's cos I knew they were trying to catch me out! I'm not sure if I'd get it in an interview situation though, I'd probably be too panicked to think straight

drunkenfool

explain....

DonkeyStyle \o/

Yeah pretty simple questions when you've got the time to sit here and think them over... but with an interviewer burning a hole in my head with his stare, I'm not so sure if I wouldn't blurt out what my brain thinks is the obvious answer.
I suppose it's all about grace under pressure, but once I get my foot in the door, I no longer feel pressure because I stop caring about my job... maybe I should explain this to them