BrainTeaser 1 Apileof1000stones,splitittotwopilesxandy,yougetanumber x*y.Splitxandyfurther,youanumberforeachofthem.Repeatthe process until there are 1000 piles of 1 stone, add all the numbers together,whatisthesum?

Whydoyoualwaysgetthesameanswer evenyoursplittingisarbitrary? Answer: 1000*999/2 2 Astringoflength1,cutittotwostringsoflengthxandy,yougeta numberx*y.Thenyoudosimilarsplittingandaddallthenumbersup. Whatisthelimitofthesum? Answer: 1/2,usegeometricalmethod,x*yislikeareaofasquare. 3 1 2 3 0.25 0.25 0. 4 MywifeandIwenttoadinnerpartywithfourothercouples.Atthe beginningoftheparty,somepeopleshookhands.(Obviously,noone shook his or her own hand or spouse's hand, and no one shook hands with the same person twice.) During the party I surveyed all the other people as to how many hands each one shook. I got

differentanswersfromeveryone.Whatdidmywifesay? Answer: 1)Thereare10individualsinthepuzzle 2) There are only 8 people in each persons "set" of possible handshakes 3) There must be 9 unique answers (the asker doesn't count), therefore the answers must be 08 (9 unique answers), this also meansiftheremustbearepetitionit'stheaskerandhiswife. 4)Ifoneperson(letscallthemA)mustshake8hands,thenforthere to be a 0 answer it must be A's partner, B, (since the only person outsideA's"set"lististheirpartner,andtheymustuseeveryonein theirsettoget8) Thescoreis: A=8 B=0 Everyoneelse=1 5)Sincethe8and0answersmustbeunique(nooneelsecannow shakehandswiththem),the80pair"exits"thepuzzle,their"set"is removed limiting each subsequent pair's possible handshake partnerstototalset2=6. 6) For there to be a 7 answer, C, must now shake hands with everyoneintheir"set"(now6).Fortheretobea1answer,itmustbe

C's partner, D (who already shook with A), the only person outside C'sset. Nowthescoreis A=8 B=0 C=7(1fromshakingwithA+6remainingset) D=1(fromshakingwithA) Everyoneelse2(1fromshakingwithA,1fromshakingwithC) 7) Again, 7 and 1 are unique so that pair is removed reducing the availablehandshakeset,set2=4. 8)Repeatingthosesteps,eachpairmustrepresenttheanswers80, 71,62,53leavingthewifetohavethenumber"4"alongwiththe asker. Idrewseveraldiagramstohelpcomeupwiththislogic;thisiswhat theylooklike.

5 Answerthisquestionin10seconds:aballwitharadius2weighs80

ounces,howmuchdoesaballwitharadius3weigh? Answer: 270ounces, 6

Youareinarowingboatonalake.Alargeheavyrockisalsointhe boat.Youheavetherockoverboard.Itsinkstothebottomofthelake. Whathappenstothewaterlevelinthelake?Doesitrise,fallorstay thesame?

Youareprovided2unequallengthsofropeandtoldthatbothtake exactly 1 hour to burn from end to end, although they dont necessarily do so in a uniform fashion. How would you go about measuringanexact15minuteperiod?

Probability 1 Anormaldicewith6sideswithnumbersfrom1to6,tossitatmost three times. After each toss, you get a number x, you can either continueorgetxdollars.Whatisthegameworth?Andwhatwould youliketopaytoplaythegame? Answer: You have to work backwards, like an American option, get asked aboutthisquestionseveraltimes,thisseemsamustaskquestionfor interviewers. If you are riskneutral, you get the same answer as in thefirstquestion,nototherwise. 2 Acoin,tossanumbertimesuntilyougetahead,sayN.Youwillget

paid with 2N, what is the game worth? And what would you like to paytoplaythegame? Answer: Infinity?Ifyouareriskneutral,yougetthesameanswerasin3,not otherwise. 3 Three pieces of pizzas, one with both sides burned, the other one with1sideburned,andthethirdonewith0sideburned.Stackthem together blindly, you see the top surface is burned, what is the probabilityfortheothersideofthetoppizzabeingburned? Answer: 2/3 4 Anormaldice,twoplayers,XandY.Xstartstossingthecoinfirst,ifa 6isshown,thegamestopsandXwins,otherwise,Ytossesandsoon. Whatistheprobabilityforxtowin? Answer: 6/11 5 Givenacoinwithprobabilitypoflandingonheadsafteraflip,what is the probability that the number of heads will ever equal the numberoftailsassuminganinfinitenumberofflips? 6 Supposetherearentypesofcouponsandthatthetypeofeachnew couponobtainedisindependentofpastselectionsandislikelytobe anyofthentypes.Supposeonecontinuescollectinguntilacomplete

setisobtained.Findtheprobabilitythatthereisexactlyonetypeiin thefinalcollection. Answer: 1/n*(1+1/2+1/3+...+1/n) Mathematics 1 A random variable, W(t), follows Brownian motion, W(t)n is a martingale,what'revaluesofn? 2 What are AR, MA, ARCH and GARC, why different specifications? Howtotestnonconstantvolatility? 3 Threerandomvariableshavethesamepairwisecorrelationfunction, \rho,what'srho? 4 Whatisthedistancefromtheorigintothesurface2x+3y+4z=12? Answer: getthenormalvectortothesurfaceorminimizex^2+y^2+z^2 5 Whatisii? Answer: writethebaseiase^(2N*Pi+1/2*pi) 6 7 sec(x) 0 pi/6 IfXisaGaussianvariableN(0,1),whatisE[Xn]? Answer: usemomentgeneratingfunctionanddoTaylorexpansion 8 WhatistypeIandIIerrors?Whatisthepoweroftest?Centrallimit

theorem,estimatortheory. Answer: StatisticBook 9 Whatmakesavalidcorrelationmatrix? Answer: Symmetricalsemidefinite 10 Howtogeneratecorrelatedrandomwalkseries? Answer: Cheloskydecompositionordiagnalization 11 WhatschemestosolvePDEs? 12 WhatisQuasirandomnumberandwhy? 13 Do you know how to find minimum value of a function? Any other searchmethodsbesidesNewton? 14 WhatisMonteCarlosimulation/integration? Logicreasoning 1 There are 100 statements, the nth statement says: among the 100 statement,atmost(n1)aretrue.Howmanyaretrue? Answer: Ifn>50,thenifthenthstatementisfalse, Algorithm 1 Whatisthedifferencebetweenthreadandprocess? Answer:

14canbeansweredbyreadingStroustrup'sbook 2 What are virtual function / inheritance, public / private / protected member / inheritance, static member / function, dynamic / static cast,andtemplate? 3 STL questions: how to use sort, map? How to implement map idea withvector? 4 Whatisaninitializationlistandinwhatsituationsuchanlistmustbe provided? 5 Whatisdesignpattern,anyexamples? Answer: google 6 Howtosortanarray?Whatistheorderofcomplexity? Answer: Knowatleast3sortingalgorithmandsayhowitworks 7 Howtodefineatreeandvisitallelementsofthetree? Answer: Preorder,postorder Finance 1 Astock,$10pershare,ayearlater,$12withprobability60%,$8with probability40%,what'sthetheoreticalpriceofanatthemoneycall option(underlyingthestock)ifriskfreerateis0? 2 A vanilla bond has a positive convexity, what security may have a

negativeconvexity? Answer: Callablebond 3 What is the distribution of correlation coefficient of two random stockslike? Answer: Positiveskewed 4 Howmanystocksshouldbeappropriateinaportfolio? Answer? 200? 5 Howtoensurethatyourportfoliohasa60%probabilityofhavinga return>10% 6 S1 20%S2 30% 50% 7 gold returnrate 10% risk free interest rate 1% forward contract 8 Atthemoneycalloption, 100 120,100,90, 1/3 Answer:

Marketisincomplete,between(0,20/3) 9 Atthemoneycalloption, 100 120,90, 7 Answer: Shortthecall;borrowcashandlongstocktohedgetocall.Thereis arbitraryopp. Behavioral 1 Giveanexampletoillustratehowtodealwithapproachingdeadline /badcollaborator/badproject/mistakeandsoon.