Thanks for all your replies. Much appreciated.
Just for context the kind of interview questions I'm talking about are more to do idiocy or mathematical stuff (it is banking in London after all). As such they are virtually impossible to prepare for. I can't quite remember them all or any in full detail but things like:
"there's a rabbit than can jump up one or two steps at a time but has to come back one (or something) whenever it does. What's the algorithm for climbing up 'n' stairs? ". (I identified it was the Fibonacci series but it took some time)
"a train leaves station A to get to station Z at n MPH. meanwhile another train leaves station Z a o MPH heading towards station A. These are the distances for intermediate stations. If a bird perched on the bonnet of A starts flying at another rate and at what point will the bird meet the second train?" (ridiculous or what? That was for a UI role btw)
"we have three baskets of fruit and all of them are incorrectly labeled. One has Apples, one has Oranges and the other has Mixed. You can put your hand in only one basket and then must label all the rest correctly". (this isn't that difficult actually but only when you've really thought it through and when you know the answer it's common sense).
"(whips out a chess board). What's the algorithm to calculate the total number of squares on this board?"
"what's the heighest floor you can drop an egg from without it breaking?"
etc, etc
btw, I've only ever had these kind of interview questions in London and in investment banking. Of the 4 different contracts I've landed there over the last 4 years none of them fortunately involved these types of questions though one of them had a one hour pair programming test which in many ways was just as stressful. Maybe I haven't lost my touch but actually was never any good at these type of questions?
Thanks again
Just for context the kind of interview questions I'm talking about are more to do idiocy or mathematical stuff (it is banking in London after all). As such they are virtually impossible to prepare for. I can't quite remember them all or any in full detail but things like:
"there's a rabbit than can jump up one or two steps at a time but has to come back one (or something) whenever it does. What's the algorithm for climbing up 'n' stairs? ". (I identified it was the Fibonacci series but it took some time)
"a train leaves station A to get to station Z at n MPH. meanwhile another train leaves station Z a o MPH heading towards station A. These are the distances for intermediate stations. If a bird perched on the bonnet of A starts flying at another rate and at what point will the bird meet the second train?" (ridiculous or what? That was for a UI role btw)
"we have three baskets of fruit and all of them are incorrectly labeled. One has Apples, one has Oranges and the other has Mixed. You can put your hand in only one basket and then must label all the rest correctly". (this isn't that difficult actually but only when you've really thought it through and when you know the answer it's common sense).
"(whips out a chess board). What's the algorithm to calculate the total number of squares on this board?"
"what's the heighest floor you can drop an egg from without it breaking?"
etc, etc
btw, I've only ever had these kind of interview questions in London and in investment banking. Of the 4 different contracts I've landed there over the last 4 years none of them fortunately involved these types of questions though one of them had a one hour pair programming test which in many ways was just as stressful. Maybe I haven't lost my touch but actually was never any good at these type of questions?
Thanks again
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