Stupid question asked in interview.

I was recently called for an interview, and the interviewer asked me a puzzle. It goes something like this:

"You have two containers, C1 and C2, both filled with equal volumes of oil and water, respectively (i.e., C1 -> oil volume V and C2 -> water volume V). A spoonful of liquid is taken from C1 and poured into C2, then a spoonful of liquid is taken from C2 and poured into C1. After these two steps take place, which container will have higher purity (concentration of oil for C1 and that of water for C2)?"

I thought for a while and answered C1, citing that since we put pure oil from C1 into C2 but a mix from C2 into C1, certainly some oil from C2 is back in C1, thereby achieving more purity. The interviewer said it was wrong and asked me to try again. This time, I did some actual math and was told C2 would have a greater concentration based on the calculations. The interviewer again tagged me wrong, so I asked the interviewer to explain, and his answer was that both would be equal since you take 1 spoon of oil from C1 to C2, and put 1 spoon of water from C2 to C1. This is obviously flawed, as no oil is getting back on the spoon when you dip it into C2. I wanted to point that out but didn't. Later, I re-did my math thoroughly and found that C2 would have a greater purity of water.

9mo ago
ElephentKnife
ElephentKnife

Use docker, all container problems will be solved.

Rickc137
Rickc137

Exactly, after reading the words filled with volume, i have up reading

CharSoBees
CharSoBees

They are still asking puzzles. Which profile interview was for?

MomoMan
MomoMan

SDE backend...

Koala
Koala

Lol

lazy_coder
lazy_coder

Have you taken into consideration the fact that oil and water don't mix? Ofc it's still possible to get some amount of both water and oil in the spoon, or just water or just oil, but ig the not mixing part was what was being tested

MomoMan
MomoMan

Yep, in fact I had asked the question to clarify on this assumption, basically got an unclear answer saying that we can consider both cases one by one 🤷🏻‍♂️

lazy_coder
lazy_coder

Then ig the best answer would've been for 3 cases: only water, only oil, both water and oil in the spoon

Rhombus
Rhombus

Higher purity of what?? Oil or Water??

This should have been asked as counter

benzene
benzene

without context i will assume purity means homogeneity

lazy_coder
lazy_coder

It's clearly mentioned concentration of oil for C1 and water for C2. Maybe try reading properly?

bestbachelorcook
bestbachelorcook

It will remain same, assuming oil floats on top of water

MomoMan
MomoMan

Well why? If you dip your spoon from the surface then you're still going to pick some oil in the oil water mixture right?

bestbachelorcook
bestbachelorcook

If you don't keep this problem ideal situation, it's not a problem it's BS, giving sanity by assuming volume of water and oil >>>> volume capacity of spoon

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samosa
samosaStealth5mo

Having some fun with the interviewers

So basically I don't hesitate in challenging the interviewer if I feel like they don't know how to interview a senior candidate

so during many interviews, this is how I have caught them off guard:

  1. The interviewer was asking me t...
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user

Not sure whether this is something to tom-tom about. Talks more about the quality of interviewer & the approach taken...

AriesW
AriesWStudent7mo

Don’t be a stubborn interviewer!

During a recent interview at a Pune-based startup, I encountered a problem statement that involved a rather uncommon custom data structure.

The problem, summarized on one page with about 150 words, took me around 10 minutes to fully c...