Comments on: The 12 Craziest Google Interview Questions

By: JP@ classpath in Java

JP@ classpath in Java — Sun, 05 Feb 2012 04:45:00 +0000

Google has been known for its tough and weird interview questions but they do respect classics like Data Structure, Operating systems, programming and software design. here are some of my favorite google interview questions asked on software Engineer interview http://javarevisited.blogspot.com/2012/01/google-interview-questions-answers-top.html

By: Pliskin

Pliskin — Thu, 08 Dec 2011 19:53:00 +0000

1. How many golf balls can you fit in a school bus?
Depending on the size of the golf balls, as many as you’d like until you can’t fit any more.
2. How much should you charge to wash all the windows in Seattle?
The net worth of Microsoft divided by the number of windows = price per window.
3. How many piano tuners are there in the entire world?
This is a fermi paradox. To work it out requires a lot of assumptions, and I don’t make assumptions.
4. Every man in a village of 100 married couples has cheated on his wife. Every wife in the village instantly knows when a man other than her husband has cheated, but does not know when her own husband has. The village has a law that does not allow for adultery. Any wife who can prove that her husband is unfaithful must kill him that very day. The women of the village would never disobey this law. One day, the queen of the village visits and announces that at least one husband has been unfaithful. What happens?
Answer 1: All the men run away, because they are all guilty.
Answer 2: Because the women don’t want their husband to die, they provide proof to other wives that they slept with their husbands. Eventually, all the husbands die (except for the smart ones who already left!)
Answer 3: The unhappiest wife immediately takes it upon herself to kill her husband, as so to get a new one. All other wives are then free to keep their cheating husbands.
5. You are shrunk to the height of a nickel and your mass is proportionally reduced so as to maintain your original density. You are then thrown into an empty glass blender. The blades will start moving in 60 seconds. What do you do?
Answer 1: I’d ask the dime to give me his 10 cents, weigh in my own 5 cents, and conclude that this is a ridiculous situation.
Answer 2: Depends on how fast the blades are moving (they might be reaaaaallly slow!).
6. If you look at a clock and the time is 3:15, what is the angle between the hour and the minute hands?
There are no hands, it’s digital.
7. Suppose we have N companies, and we want to eventually merge them into one big company. How many ways are there to merge?
Three: Peaceful, beneficial merger; Hostile takeover: buy out the majority of shares, become the largest stockholder, and force the company to merge in order to survive; talk to the commanding officer of the other company and suggest they’d be more combat effective if they joined forces.
8. Why are manhole covers round?
Because the sewer pipes leading to the surface are round?
9. A man pushed his car to a hotel and lost his fortune. What happened?
Answer 1: The hotel sued him for property damage.
Answer 2: The strenuous physical activity the man endured by pushing the car caused him to have a heart attack and he died.
10. Explain the significance of “dead beef.”
Answer 1: Each letter corresponds to a hexadecimal value, obviously.
Answer 2: Dead beef is significant because both my jacket and diet are made from it.
11. Design an evacuation plan for San Francisco.
Using a plethora of high grade explosives, detonate them simultaneously along the fault lines, freeing San Francisco from the rest of the plate (or submerging it… either works).
12. You have eight balls all of the same size. Seven of them weigh the same, and one of them weighs slightly more. How can you find the ball that is heavier by using a balance and only two weighings?
I would use the balance to beat the answer out of the tester who new which ball weighed more. I would then double check his answer by weighing it against two randomly selected, average weight balls.

By: Pietro_Provelone

Pietro_Provelone — Fri, 14 Oct 2011 21:19:00 +0000

For the blender question, If you just climbed on the blade and held on while it spins. You should be fine.

By: microsoft

microsoft — Thu, 23 Jun 2011 10:15:00 +0000

what the f r u saying…

By: James

James — Thu, 02 Jun 2011 00:27:00 +0000

And for question one, they said FIT, not FILL a bus. So as many balls as you want until the bus is full. Answers like that.

By: James

James — Thu, 02 Jun 2011 00:23:00 +0000

I see your reasoning, but I think you’ve missed the point of the questions. There is no right/wrong answer, and you aren’t expected to actually work any of them out (for example, they don’t give you enough information to do any form of calculations for question 1). They are psychographic questions, designed to determine personality types. Take the piano tuners questions. There is no way to possibly work it out. One possible correct answer would be ‘far less than the number of piano in the world’

It’s to separate free-thinkers from analytic ‘math-types’ and determine personality traits. ie, look at this ink blot and tell me what you see

By: Peter

Peter — Tue, 18 Jan 2011 14:14:00 +0000

For the village question, wouldn’t the cheating involve the wives too? No one would want to admit anything, so no one would die except the 1 husband?

By: fiendly

fiendly — Wed, 01 Dec 2010 06:48:00 +0000

I am disliking the amount of people who are not commenting on how awesome the author’s answers are.

By: dknight

dknight — Tue, 10 Aug 2010 04:29:02 +0000

Actually they could decide to kill the queen and keep the peace.

By: Landshark2010

Landshark2010 — Fri, 04 Jun 2010 23:58:54 +0000

For question 2, i'm surprised nobody thought what I thought:
How much should you charge to wash all the windows in Seattle?

You shouldn't be washing any windows in Seattle because all it does is RAIN! The rain takes care of the windows!