1. Solve this cryptic equation, realizing of course that values for
M and E could be interchanged.
No leading zeros are allowed.
WWWDOT - GOOGLE = DOTCOM
2. Write a haiku describing possible methods for predicting search
traffic seasonality.
3.
1
1 1
2 1
1 2 1 1
1 1 1 2 2 1
What is the next line?
4. You are in a maze of twisty little passages, all alike. There is a
dusty laptop here with a
weak wireless connection. There are dull, lifeless gnomes strolling about. What
dost thou do?
A) Wander aimlessly, bumping into obstacles until you are eaten by a grue.
B) Use the laptop as a digging device to tunnel to the next level.
C) Play MPoRPG until the battery dies along with your hopes.
D) Use the computer to map the nodes of the maze and discover an exit path.
E) Email your resume to Google, tell the lead gnome you quit and find yourself
in whole different world.
5. What’s broken with Unix? How would you fix it?
6. On your first day at Google, you discover that your cubicle mate
wrote the textbook
you used as a primary resource in your first year of graduate school. Do you:
A) Fawn obsequiously and ask if you can have an autograph.
B) Sit perfectly still and use only soft keystrokes to avoid disturbing her
concentration.
C) Leave her daily offerings of granola and English toffee from the food
bins.
D) Quote your favorite formula from the textbook and explain how it’s now
your mantra.
E) Show her how example 17b could have been solved with 34 fewer lines of
code.
7. Which of the following expresses Google over-arching philosophy?
A) "I’m feeling lucky"
B) "Don’t be evil"
C) "Oh, I already fixed that"
D) "You should never be more than
50 feet from food"
E) All of the above
8. How many different ways can you color an icosahedron with one of
three colors on each face?
What colors would you choose?
9. This space left intentionally blank. Please fill it with something
that improves upon emptiness.
10.On an infinite, two-dimensional, rectangular lattice of 1-ohm
resistors, what is the
resistance between two nodes that are a knight’s move away?
11.It’s 2 PM on a sunny Sunday afternoon in the Bay Area. You’re
minutes from the Pacific
Ocean, redwood forest hiking trails and world class cultural attractions. What
do you do?
12.In your opinion, what is the most beautiful math equation ever
derived?
13. Which of the following is NOT an actual interest group formed by
Google employees?
A. Women’s basketball
B. Buffy fans
C. Cricketeers
D. Nobel winners
E. Wine club
14.What will be the next great improvement in search technology?
15.What is the optimal size of a project team, above which additional
members do not
contribute productivity equivalent to the percentage increase in the staff size?
A) 1
B) 3
C) 5
D) 11
E) 24
16.Given a triangle ABC, how would you use only a compass and
straight edge to find a point P
such that triangles ABP, ACP and BCP have equal perimeters? (Assume that ABC is
constructed so that a solution does exist.)
17.Consider a function which, for a given whole number n, returns the
number of ones required
when writing out all numbers between 0 and n. For example, f(13)=6. Notice that
f(1)=1. What
is the next largest n such that f(n)=n?
18.What’s the coolest hack you’ve ever written?
19.’Tis known in refined company, that choosing K things out of N
can be done in ways as many as choosing N minus K from N: I pick K, you the
remaining.
Find though a cooler bijection, where you show
a knack uncanny, of making your choices contain
all K of mine. Oh, for pedantry: let K be no more
than half N.
20.What number comes next in the sequence:
10, 9, 60, 90, 70, 66,?
