interview-prep-material.pdf

8/14/2019 interview-prep-material.pdf

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My personal list of interview prep material

stuff that helped me prepare last year (and also things that I've discovered since)

covering the areas that I hear that most people (including myself) tend to panic in.

CLARIFICATION: This article does not claim to contain any qestions nor

discssion on qestions that have !een planned for" have !een as#ed or are

crrently !ein$ as#ed %dependin$ on when this is !ein$ read&" in the '( )*+, or

any other ftre interview session- It does however contain adaptations !y the

athor" of possi!le past interview qestions and may contain speclation on and

references to %from e.ternal sorces& qestions of which similar variants cold !e"

!y coincidence and n!e#nownst to the athor" !e as#ed from applicants in ftre

or on$oin$ interviews-

A note: this was originally intended as a list of things you could try in your summer but

since it's a bit too late for doing that (in this cycle at least) you could probably skim

through the literature and pick out things to try as time permits.

IM/ORTANT: Although I've listed a lot of books in this article, that doesn't mean that

you need to have gone through them to have a chance, or to improve your chances, of

getting in. or does it mean that they guarantee you getting in or an improvement of

your chances. !his is "ust a compilation of #uesitons that I feel have helped me andwould have helped me at my interview.


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$. %stimation

&ou're almost certain to get asked a #uestion to make an estimate of some physical#uantity or another in at least one of your sub"ect interviews. rom my own eperience

and from others I've heard from, these range from *ow many +ars bars do you need to

eat to run a -km marathon / does it matter how fast you run to %stimate the amount

of heat lost by ventilating your house in the winter to %stimate the volume of air

trapped between grains in a bucket of dry sand. ot only do these #uestions re#uire you

to be able to make reasonable estimates of things like the energy content of a +ars bar,

the si0e of grain of sand and the volume of a house, they also do need you to be

confident in #uickly plugging values like these into e#uations that need to be made upon the fly.

0esstimation )-* 1 Lawrence 2einstein

!his book is perhaps the best practise for this that I've come across in the past two years

(a close second is its predecessor 1uestimation 2$.-3 by the same author). 4ork through

it and you'll have no reason to get caught off guard when you're asked to guess how

much the minimum *uman 5erceptible weight might be.

A link to the book on Ama0on is here. At the time of writing it was less than 6$ from

Ama0on and less than 6$- new from other sellers.

3ac#4of4the45nvelope /hysics 1 Clifford 6wart7

As the name suggests, this book is slightly more physics/focused but covers a very

broad range of physical phenomena. Again, while I haven't personally read it through

properly, it comes highly recommended in preparing you for kind of rough calculations

you'd be asked to perform. !he problems range from all/time classics to physics of some

unlikely scenarios. In general, they are somewhat less useful in a day/to/day basis thanthose in Guestimationbut the preparation it gives for the task is still ecellent.

An ama0on link is here. !his is slightly more epensive than 1uestimation 7.- at 6$8.9-

from Ama0on and about 6$- new from other sellers, including, at the time of writing,

ook ;epository.
http://www.amazon.com/Guesstimation-2-0-Solving-Todays-Problems/dp/069115080Xhttp://www.amazon.co.uk/Back-Envelope-Physics-Hopkins-Paperback/dp/0801872634http://www.amazon.com/Guesstimation-2-0-Solving-Todays-Problems/dp/069115080Xhttp://www.amazon.co.uk/Back-Envelope-Physics-Hopkins-Paperback/dp/0801872634


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7.


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A!G>AH


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A good way to get practice is to work through problems such as those in this book here:

3rainteaser /hysics 4 08ran 0rimvall

Although some problems later on in the book may re#uire the use of some slightly

advanced calculus (and not usually interviewable), the vast ma"ority should be do/able

(atleast partially) with perhaps occasionally a tiny bit more than an A/level knowledge

of mathematics.

Again, here's the book on Ama0onK going for 6$F.9- direct and 6$$.9D new from other

sellers.

. Bhemistry

&ou can find a mock interview hereand the actual #uestions are likely to be slightly

more advanced than that. Again, more often than not, interviewers won't be trying to

catch you out but trying to verify if all those abilities that you claim to have (or should

be having) in your personal statement.

In my interview, for eample, all the chemistry problems that I was asked were soluble

solely with mathematics (these included calculus with rate e#uations) but you should be

prepared for anything from a standard A/level syllabus. eep in mind that A level

syllabuses often repeat the same kind of #uestion over and over again so to get properpractice, it's a good idea to look at #uestions on the same topics from as many different

eam boards as you can.

2hy do Chemical Reactions 9appen 4 ;ames


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!*%>

!hese can include probablility and written discussion of physical phenomena.

!he level of probability #uestions can most often be tackled easily with a knowledge of

Bombinatorics and 5ermutations (though officially you don't need to know either of

these) and a careful breakdown of the problem.

Bonsider:

You play a game of coin-toss with a friend. The only rule of the game is that if you get a

tails, then the other person wins and vice versa.

The coin is fair and has an equal chance of yeilding head or tails for any toss.

Are you more liely to win if you start or let your friend start with the first toss!

!he answer is that you're more likely to win if you let your friend start.

*int: 4rite down an epression for the probability of you winning in each case and try

to convert it into a form that you should be familliar with. (ot neccesarily from a

'statistics' course).

;iscussion #uestions can be verbal (which is good because it's a conversation and you

get support from the interviewer in real time if you need it), or in the case of a pre/

interview test, involves a small written account that you would then discuss with theinterviewers. Luestions could include:

"hy is the sy #lue! $iscuss with reference to the interaction of light with the

atmosphere.

$iscuss why the moon sometimes appears red during a full lunar ecclipse.

=o are almost $aranteed to $et a qestion a!ot somethin$ yo have never seen

!efore-

!his will probably include a short eplanation (which for some can be frustratingly

incomplete) and an e#uation about the behaviour of something that happens. &ou'll then

be epected to be discuss the what happens to the system as various conditions are

changed.

Other miscellaneos sorces of practice that aren>t entirely tailored to an A4level

sylla!s !t sefl nontheless-


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%arvard Pro#lem of the "eeis an ecellent set of over F- #uestions in physics,

maths and logic. Gnfortunately, a large number of them re#uire knowledge some

advanced calculus and mechanics to do that you're not epected to have for an

interview.

;o/able #uestions with an A/level knowledge may include:

5roblem $, D2$3, F, $E, D and ME

!his is list is not comprehensive and there probably are many more that you could

do.

2$3 K I recently had a lecture on this very #uestion

!he incredibly rare The &hicen from 'ins( And )) *ther +nfuriating

Brainteasers &uri Bhernyak, >obert >ose is an all/classic. I've only ever seen

one problem from this book and the solution to it (while I understood the

mathematics behind it) I still find difficult to convince myself of. !his book is

e.pensive (possibly because it's old and there aren't too many copies around).

!he publicly available !rinity Bollege at

interview-prep-material.pdf

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