Saturday, November 30, 2019

The Symbol Of Blood In Macbeth Essays - Characters In Macbeth

The Symbol of Blood in Macbeth Blood is known to all of us to represent life, death and often injury. Blood is an essential part of life, and without blood, we could not live. This is known to everyone, and because of this, when Shakespeare uses the symbol of blood to represent treason, murder and death, it is easily understood and fits in perfectly with the ideas we have of blood. Blood is mentioned often in the play and most times in reference to murder or treason. The first sinister reference to blood is in Act 2, Scene 1, when Macbeth sees the dagger floating in the air leading him to Duncan's room and he sees "on the blade and dudgeon gouts of blood", indicating that the knife has been visciously and violently stabbed into someone. The next reference, in Scene 2, is when Lady Macbeth smears the blood from the dagger on the faces and hands of the sleeping servants "I'll guild the faces of the grooms withal, for it must seem their guilt". This is another sinister and evil reference to blood, setting up the innocent servants of the king. Again, blood is referred to when Malcolm and Donaldbain are discussing what to do and Malcolm says : "there's daggers in men's smiles: the nearer in blood, the nearer bloody." Meaning that their closest relatives are likely to kill them. Again, blood is being used to describe treason, murder and death. In Act 5, Scene 1 - the sleepwalking scene, while Lady Macbeth is sleepwalking, there are constant references to the evil deeds that Macbeth and herslef have committed, most of which include references to blood. She goes through the motions of washing her hands saying "Out damned spot! Out, I say" in reference to the blood that stained her hands after smearing it all over the servants. She also refers to Duncan's murder saying : "Yet who would have thought the old man to have so much blood in him!". All these references are to murder and both include direct references to blood, again linking blood to treachery and murder. I think that throughout the play, Shakespeare effectively conveys theme of death, murder and treason through the symbol of blood. Normally, the word blood makes us think about injury and death, being an essential part of life, and the symbol of blood being used in the play is understood by the audience as being essential to life, and in the context it is used, it is a perfect metaphor for death and murder. I think that it is an effective symbol and is used well.

Tuesday, November 26, 2019

Debunking 10 Common Job Search Myths

Debunking 10 Common Job Search Myths Psst†¦if you don’t bring seven copies of your resume to the interview, printed on expensive paper, they won’t take you seriously. Oh, and if you don’t follow up with Human Resources once a day, every day after your interview, they’ll forget you exist. †¦Pass it on! The job hunt is one of those processes that is oddly regimented (when is the last time you saw a resume that wasn’t templated to within an inch of its life?), but also subject to old wives’ tales and everyone thinking they know best. (Except we do. Trust.) It can be hard to know what advice to rely on, and which to take with a grain of salt. In that spirit, let’s look at some of the most common bits of job hunt conventional wisdom, and see how it stacks up, reality-wise.Myth: You don’t need a cover letter anymore.This is a popular one in this age of digital job applications and faceless job engine sites. The phrase â€Å"cover letter† itself conveys a bygone era: you would wrap your resume in a paper-life substance covered with words about your intentions, your qualifications, and your eagerness to talk in depth about this opportunity, then place it in another paper cover, whereupon a civil servant would convey your package to a â€Å"mailbox.† Quaint, no?In reality, the cover letter does indeed serve a purpose, even if the entire process is handled online. It helps give context to your resume, and puts a voice to your stats. Your resume may be neutrally reviewed for key words by a robot inside a hamster wheel (that’s how those sites work, right?), but at some point your package will be viewed by a human looking to hire you. It’s good practice to write a cover letter to attach to your resume, regardless of how you send in your package.Myth: Never quit a job without having another job offer first.Ideally, sure, you’d have your next job lined up while you’re still working, and have a seamless tra nsition from one to the next. But you know what doesn’t always line up correctly? Life. Sometimes quitting your job is the right option, regardless of what you have coming up next. Not having a job lined up can make your job search more complicated, but this isn’t a black-and-white issue.Myth: Add HR people to your network for future opportunities.According to career expert Hannah Morgan, this is not the best use of your time or networking energy. Human Resources professionals are usually focused on filling specific roles at specific times. They may not know about future openings, or even think to mine their own networks for openings that have already come up. You’re better off networking with people in your target departments at specific companies.Myth: Enthusiasm and passion outweigh experience for reach positions.I wish this one were true! Unfortunately, the reality is that overcoming a lack of experience is a major challenge for people looking to level up, o r people trying to change careers. While it’s not an impossible challenge, especially if you’re committed, there’s no easy way around a lack of experience. Ideally, you’d be eager and passionate while actively working to get more experience. But while passion alone may get you spunkiness bonus points, it may not translate into a job offer. If you’re trying to show your dedication to the job, even when you don’t have the most experience, you can help yourself by tailoring your resume to emphasize skills over experience, and use the interview as a platform to talk about other ways you’re qualified for the position.Myth: You can’t change career paths after you choose one.Ever heard of famed newspaper editor Walt Disney? Or how about legendary bureaucrat Julia Child? No career decision is a permanent one, if you don’t want it to be. Sometimes we just outgrow old choices- and career decisions aren’t immune from that. O r maybe your career path isn’t what you thought it would be when you started. Or maybe you just feel ready for a change. Whatever the reason, you can always prepare to start over in a new field. There are challenges in making the switch- experience? Job opportunities? Skills?- but if you’re invested in this change and make plans to get the experience and skills you need (or are willing to start from the bottom), there’s nothing stopping you.Myth: All you need is a good resume.A good resume is the centerpiece of your job application package, that part is true. But it’s not the only thing, and you can’t count on it to get you from first look to job offer. You need to build the rest of your package around it. Even great resume might not be able to overcome a â€Å"meh† interview- or worse, and actively bad one.It’s important to be able to put your resume details (skills, experience, career highlights) in context, and to be able to talk a bout them coherently and confidently. You want your voice as an applicant to come through, and that comes via the interview, not just the bullet points on paper (or screen). Once you send off your resume, that’s your starting point for interview prep. Practice your handshake, come up with specific anecdotes that demonstrate your skills, and don’t forget to bring questions to ask.Myth: Hiring managers will be able to connect the dots on my qualifications for this job.Don’t leave anything to chance! If you want the company to know you’d be a good fit because of your communication and leadership skills, tell them! Don’t count on an HR rep or an interviewer to assume that based on your education, or past jobs, that you’d be a good fit for the position. Use the cover letter and the interview to your best advantage to make connections to the job description, and make sure you hit the points you want to hit.Myth: I’m clearly qualified, so th e automated application system will push me to the top.Remember what I just said about not taking things for granted? This goes double for computerized application processes. When you work on your resume for this application, make sure you’re using as many keywords from the job description as you can, as well as strategizing how to make your resume pop, even in robot eyes. Knowing how these automated engines process and spit out the data in your resume is an extremely helpful tool in actively trying to game the application system. [via Lifehacker]Myth: You should stay in constant contact with the hiring department so they know how engaged you are.Follow-up is great. A thank-you note is imperative. But after that, regularly checking in to see how the post-interview process is moving along is not a great strategy. For one thing, they may be seeing other candidates, or doing an internal review process. Hiring can have a lot of moving parts, and if someone is out on vacation for a few days or there are a number of qualified candidates, you may not get the instant job offer that you might hope to get.After you submit a resume, it’s best to wait until you hear from the company†¦reaching out at that stage won’t necessarily help get your resume seen or considered. After you have an interview, send your thank you on the same day, and then give them at least a week. At the one week mark, it’s okay to start checking in occasionally (but only occasionally). And there are other, less invasive ways to follow up after the interview, if you’re feeling especially anxious and don’t want to annoy the hiring manager or long-suffering HR rep.Myth: Your best job opportunities are found online.The interweb is one of the best, most inclusive tools you have in your job search arsenal. You can find companies and openings that you might never have thought to search for, and can have your resume in someone’s hands in the time it takes to send an email. But don’t count out offline methods, either.There’s something to be said for good, old-fashioned networking: most jobs are still filled by either internal candidates or by applicants directly referred by employees. (There’s a reason so many companies offer referral bonuses for employees who bring in new hires. And who doesn’t like the idea of earning cash for their friends?) So while job engines can broaden your job search, don’t rely on them exclusively to get that job offer in your hands.There’s so much career advice out there, and it can be hard to tell what’s true, what used to be true, and what just isn’t true. Taking the time to think through (and do some research) about which of our most cherished job search truisms and â€Å"facts† will make you a leaner, meaner candidate armed with the best information to make decisions for your own career and job hunt.

Friday, November 22, 2019

The Natural History of the Galapagos Islands

The Natural History of the Galapagos Islands The Natural History of the Galapagos Islands: The Galpagos Islands are a wonder of nature. Located off the coast of Ecuador, these remote islands have been called â€Å"evolution’s laboratory† because their remoteness, isolation from one another and different ecological zones have allowed plant and animal species to adapt and evolve undisturbed. The Galapagos Islands have a long and interesting natural history. The Birth of the Islands: The Galapagos Islands were created by volcanic activity deep in the Earths crust under the ocean. Like Hawaii, the Galapagos Islands were formed by what geologists call a hot spot. Basically, a hot spot is a place in the Earths core which is much hotter than usual. As the plates making up the Earths crust move over the hot spot, it essentially burns a hole in them, creating volcanoes. These volcanoes rise up out of the sea, forming islands: the lava stone they produce shapes the topography of the islands. The Galapagos Hot Spot: In Galapagos, the Earth’s crust is moving from west to east over the hot spot. Therefore, the islands that are furthest to the east, such as San Cristà ³bal, are the oldest: they were formed many thousands of years ago. Because these older islands are no longer over the hot spot, they are no longer volcanically active. Meanwhile, islands in the western part of the archipelago, such as Isabela and Fernandina, were created only recently, geologically speaking. They are still over the hot spot and still very active volcanically. As the islands move away from the hot spot, they tend to wear down and become smaller. Animals Arrive to Galapagos: The islands are home to many species of birds and reptiles but relatively few native insects and mammals. The reason for this is simple: it’s not easy for most animals to get there. Birds, of course, can fly there. Other Galapagos animals were washed there on vegetation rafts. For example, an iguana might fall into a river, cling to a fallen branch and get swept out to sea, arriving to the islands after days or weeks. Surviving at sea for such a long time is easier for a reptile than it is for a mammal. For this reason, the large herbivores on the islands are reptiles like tortoises and iguanas, not mammals like goats and horses. Animals Evolve: Over the course of thousands of years, animals will change to fit their environment and adapt to any existing â€Å"vacancy† in a particular ecological zone. Take the famous Darwin’s finches of Galapagos. Long ago, a single finch found its way to Galapagos, where it laid eggs which would eventually hatch into a small finch colony. Over the years, fourteen different sub-species of finch have evolved there. Some of them hop on the ground and eat seeds, some stay in trees and eat insects. The finches changed to fit in where there was not already some other animal or bird eating the available food or using the available nesting sites. Arrival of Humans: The arrival of humans to the Galapagos Islands shattered the delicate ecological balance that had reigned there for ages. The islands were first discovered in 1535 but for a long time they were ignored. In the 1800s, the Ecuadorian government began settling the islands. When Charles Darwin made his famous visit to Galapagos in 1835, there was already a penal colony there. Humans were very destructive in Galapagos, mostly because of predation of Galapagos species and introduction of new species. During the nineteenth century, whaling ships and pirates took tortoises for food, wiping out the Floreana Island subspecies completely and pushing others to the brink of extinction. Introduced Species: The worst damage done by humans was the introduction of new species into Galapagos. Some animals, such as goats, were released intentionally onto the islands. Others, such as rats, were brought by man unknowingly. Dozens of animal species previously unknown in the islands were suddenly turned loose there with disastrous results. Cats and dogs eat birds, iguanas and baby tortoises. Goats can strip an area clean of vegetation, leaving no food for other animals. Plants brought for food, such as the blackberry, muscled out native species. Introduced species constitute one of the gravest dangers for the Galapagos ecosystems. Other Human Problems: Introducing animals was not the only damage humans have done to Galapagos. Boats, cars and homes cause pollution, further damaging the environment. Fishing is supposedly controlled in the islands, but many make their living by illicitly fishing for sharks, sea cucumbers and lobsters out of season or beyond catch limits: this illegal activity had a great negative impact on the marine ecosystem. Roads, boats and airplanes disturb mating grounds. Solving Galapagos’ Natural Problems: The park rangers and staff of the Charles Darwin Research Station have been working for years to reverse the effects of human impact on Galapagos, and they’ve been seeing results. Feral goats, once a major problem, have been eliminated from several islands. The numbers of wild cats, dogs and pigs are also declining. The National Park has taken on the ambitious goal of eradicating introduced rats from the islands. Although activities like tourism and fishing are still taking their toll on the islands, optimists feel that the islands are in better shape than they have been for years. Source: Jackson, Michael H. Galapagos: a Natural History. Calgary: the Universityof Calgary Press, 1993.

Wednesday, November 20, 2019

Equal Employment Opportunity Laws Essay Example | Topics and Well Written Essays - 1250 words

Equal Employment Opportunity Laws - Essay Example The federal laws prohibits job discrimination in the fields of payment based on sex, age discrimination, discrimination against people with disabilities, discrimination based on genetic information, race, ethnic, color, religion, sex or national origin (Bizmanualz, 2008). The EEOC provides coordination and oversight of all the EEO policies, regulations, and practices. The Equal Pay Act (EPA) enacted in 1963 protects all women and men working in the same work group, or establishment, from discrimination in wage rates based on sex of the worker. The minimum wage of Section 6 provides that no employee shall receive less pay than that of his or her colleagues of the opposite sex (Cook, 2009). The Congress passed the EPA as an amendment of the previous Fair Labor Standard Act in 1963. The EPA contains the regulations from the Fair Labor Standards Act, but with a concise statement and brief description of the problem that it covers. The Civil Rights Act of 1964, famously known as Title VII , prohibits discrimination of employees based on color, religion, sex, race, or national origin. It also covers discrimination against people associated with people of different religion, color, race, sex, or national origin. The law also prohibits the employees to retaliate an employee because they complained of discrimination at the workplace. Further, it requires the employer to accommodate the religious practices of the employees, unless a defense on Bona Fide Occupational Qualifications exists. Nevertheless, the exceptions to this law are rare. The Civil Rights enactment was under the presidency of John F. Kennedy. After his assassination, his Vice president Lyndon Johnson pushed for enactment of the bill terming saying that the country owed it to Kennedy’s life. Martin Luther King and Malcolm X became international figures as they were advocating for the enactment of the bill through Civil Rights Movements (Bizmanualz, 2008). Despite the enactment, both the Black and Wh ite communities engaged in protest, with the black claiming that it did not cover enough areas and the whites enraged with its passage. Regardless of the protests, the Act proved to be of great importance to the social and political development in America. The Age Discrimination in Employment Act (ADEA) of 1967 protects employees and job applicants aged 40 years and above from discrimination based on age. The discrimination may be in promotion, compensation, hiring, discharge, privileges, and conditions of employment. Other regulations that prohibit age discrimination at the workplace include The Age Discrimination Act of 1975, and Section 188 of Workforce Investment Act (WIA) of 1998. The amended Americans with Disabilities (ADA) Act of 1990 recognize and protect the equal rights of Americans with disabilities. It is models after the act of discrimination against race and gender. The Act addresses the disability issues under five titles. Title I caters for access to workplaces for the disabled people, title II protects their access to Local and State services, title III centers around commercial facilities and places of accommodation, title IV contains requirements to telecommunications companies to provide relay services for the disabled people, and title V contains miscellaneous instructions to the agencies to enforce the law. Congress enacted the law with intentions of creating a permanent civil rights law protecting

Tuesday, November 19, 2019

Women in the workforce in the 1970's in comparison to today Research Paper

Women in the workforce in the 1970's in comparison to today - Research Paper Example These definitions and stereotypes have led to expected gender roles in society, most which have developed because of superficial relationships to gender. However, this issue is one which doesn’t realistically construct the identity of individuals. When looking at â€Å"Who’s in Charge Here’ with the Mary Tyler Moore show, it can be seen that gender identity is one which is based on the gender stereotypes and definitions created in society. The result is a construction of both gender and boundaries based on stereotypes, as opposed to realistic expectations. The issue of gender roles in society is one which was first seen with the 1970s show and continues to be a part of society today. Gender Roles from Moore The episode which shows the gender differences in the Mary Tyler Moore show is â€Å"Who’s in Charge Here.† The differences in gender are noted specifically with the news room that Mary is working in. The gender expectations are first divided by those who hold the power within the news room, including the new News Producer, Lou and the News Director, Murray. Within this episode, the gender roles are divided first by the divisions in which the males have more power and Mary remains in the same situation. However, it is quickly found that Mary is only holding to this role because of gender. The power positions which both men have cause Mary to not only complete her work, but also to do the work of Murray and Lou because they don’t understand the situation. By the end of the episode, it is recognized that the positions need to be reconsidered based on qualifications, as opposed to the gender expectations from the news room (Sandrich, 1972). Stereotypes of Gender The episode demonstrated by the Mary Tyler Moore Show is one which constructs identity based on gender and gives the divisions and roles based on this stereotype. This particular concept is one which hasn’t changed today and continues to be a component i n which men and women are divided. The gender differences come first from the idea of competition in which each individual divides according to the individuals who are considered the most powerful in society and create a competitive attitude toward what is occurring. These gender differences are further divided by the power which one holds in relation to the stereotypes and the competitive spirit which is supposed to be a part of the gender. This construction of stereotypes is one which is defined specifically by the patriarchal shaping of society. It has been found that the matriarchal society has the same concept of competition among women because of the environment which is created for survival. The stereotype of gender is one which becomes constructed specifically because of the social order which is in a given culture (Gneezy, Leonard, List, 1637). The stereotypes which have been created within culture are furthered by the expected places in which women and men should have. The concept of work, within the traditional role for women, is one which most were not considered as capable of doing. The main role of women in the patriarchal society was based on the stereotype of staying in the home and caring for the family while men worked in a given office. This created a position with both in society, specifically with the stereotypes and expected gender role that was in society. Family obligations is found to become secondary for men while women often have to adapt to the concept of work structures that require shifts in how one works. This particular stereotype is one which is acted among the majority of individuals in society and is referred to as gender – typing, which one debates about specific roles because of gender (Gustafson, 513). The episode with Moore shows this, specifically as Mary has difficulty deciding

Saturday, November 16, 2019

Business Communication Essay Example for Free

Business Communication Essay ?Introduction In this assignment I am required to explain the different types of business information used by the business organisation that I have chosen for example; verbal, written, non-verbal, non-written, multimedia etc. I will also be writing their sources and purposes and analysing the different types of information. I will then evaluate the appropriateness of business information used to make strategic decisions. The business that I have chosen is Sainsbury’s. Sainsbury’s is a public limited company (PLC). It is the second largest chains of supermarkets in the United Kingdom in the retailing business. Sainsbury’s was first established with a shop in Drury Lane, and then became the largest grocery retailer in 1922. Sainsbury’s provides food and drink, home and garden, technology, toys, entertainment, clothing and much more for their customers. This comes under the tertiary sector business that provides a valuable service that customers and other businesses are prepared to pay for. From where they had first started throughout the years they have expanded it by selling different varieties of products to satisfy their customers as well as giving them new products to purchase. Types of Information Source Purpose Analysis Verbal- Face to face communication about sales reports between staff and sales manager (meetings). Internal Source- Marketing Department. This is because this department deals with sales as they can give information about the results of research undertaken by Sainsbury’s. Face to face discussions could be used by the marketing department to explain/update by communicating sales promotions. Using this opportunity through the meeting the sales manager will also have an overview of how well the employees are doing their job. It is important for Sainsbury’s to have face to face meetings about sales reports often, so that the company itself knows what needs to be improved and how they are progressing currently. Marketing department helps  this type of verbal communication by updating the company using promotions and sales so they can achieve more profit for themselves and shareholders. Verbal-A telephone conversation about a customer enquiring about a product (staff helping a customer through telephone line checking if the product that customer wants is in stock). External Source- Customer Services Department. This is because customer services deals with customer’s issues or any enquiries they might have to do with the products or the store they can speak to a Sainsbury’s representative. A telephone conversation could be used by the customer’s services department to inform future developments on customer’s response to existing products and services. However Sainsbury’s doesn’t just deal with products, they deal with different types on insurances, mobiles, recruitment and so on. It is important for Sainsbury’s to have telephone conversations with customers because this way they are able to know customer’s opinions about certain topics and anything they would like to enquire about it e.g. products, services Sainsbury’s provide. The customer services department helps this type of communication by informing staff and managers about future developments. Verbal-Speeches about expanding on areas that need s improvement (increasing an amount of tills to avoid customers waiting for a long period of time in the queue). Internal Source- Production Department. This is in this specific department because with production they are able to know what areas need improving and so along with past and future levels of production, this department knows how to deal with it in detail. They are able to know what kind of costs Sainsbury’s will be dealing with in order to expand tills which will then move on to the marketing department. Speeches about expanding on areas that need improvement could be used by inviting support for activities so that Sainsbury’s can avoid bad service coming from their employees. This means an explanation needs to be given to employees and others as it is important for them to know why this new improvement in the business is happening. It is important for Sainsbury’s to have speeches on areas that need improvement because in order for the company to expand and improve, improvement on  amount of tills to avoid customers not only helps improve the company but attra cts more new and existing customers too. Also the production department can help as they can specify what areas need to be developed and write in detail about the costs and spacing will be needed to create the new tills for the store. Written-Web-based information about employment and recruitment (information of the company’s website about vacancies available). Internal Source- Human Resources. This is based in this department because human resources can provide information about the staffing and training within Sainsbury’s. Web-based information displays many benefits of multimedia technology. Web-based information about recruitment can be used by human resources to update knowledge and offer employment through multimedia technology. Sainsbury’s website gives different varieties of choices of job roles. They also provide specific searches to allow the people look for a specific store to work in and the kind of the job role they want. It is important for Sainsbury’s to have web based information about employment and recruitment because this helps the company employ people to work for them. It gives a chance for people to use the website find out what kind of vacancies the company has going on and what sort of rules too. It is important that the human resources department deals with this type of communication as they are aware of what kind of resources is needed to create/improve the website. Written-On screen information about sales, advertising, products and promotions on certain products (e.g. food, homecare, TU clothing etc). Internal Source- Marketing Department. This is sectioned in this department because marketing campaigns, promotions and information about the market, Sainsbury’s can take care of this department well. On screen information about sales and promotions could be used by inviting support for activities for a primary purpose of making a profit. By inviting support for activities they can increase more sales on other products to make more profit. It is important for Sainsbury’s to have on screen information about sales, advertising and promotions on products because with promotions on products the company not only will be able to expand by attracting more customers, b ut they will also be gaining more profit which means more shareholders too. It is important that the marketing department deals with advertising, sales and promotions, because they can give information about the results of research they  undertake, which means they can see what their competitors are doing and how their own company can make improvements. Written-Emails for queries regarding certain topics customer’s would like to discuss (Sainsbury’s bank, recruitment and website technical queries etc). External Source- Customer services department. This is based in the customer services department because consumers are able to discuss what kind of issues they want to with the company. Emails for queries regarding certain topics customers would like to discuss, could be used by informing future developments. This is because a business cannot develop and grow more than how much Sainsbury’s is wanting and aiming for if they do not hear what their customers have to say and so emails is one of the communication techniques so that Sainsbury’s can know their views on certain things. It is important that the company lets customers have access to emailing Sainsbury’s for any kind of queries customers would like to discuss. This is because their opinions and allowing them to express their views will help Sai nsbury’s improve/expand. If Sainsbury’s do this customers will feel satisfied that their opinions are being heard and action is being taken. Also it is important that the customer services department deal with this type of communication because Sainsbury’s can give consumers the information they are wanting to know about existing products or even providing a service. Non-Verbal-Deaf person wanting to know which isle in the store is a product in (asking a staff member). External Source-Human Resources. This is located in this department because employees within the stores can help customers who are deaf and wanting a product within the store hence asking help from a staff member. A deaf person wanting to know where a product is in the store could be used by inviting support for activities as information is very important and needs to be required through communications in order to support the business and keeping it running and successful. However for deaf people Sainsbury’s can hire employees that can communicate with deaf people using sign language. It is important in Sainsbury’s that a deaf person wanting to know where certain things are the employees of this company can help them. By doing this Sainsbury’s are able to show that they provide a service that many other stores might not offer. It is important that it is located in the human resources department because employees who can do sign language can help give information towards the customers who are deaf. Some of these  employees might need training for this and human resources department are able to sort that out for them. Multi-Media- PowerPoint presentation showing sales figures (how much profit they have made within 2 months). Internal Source- Finance Department. This is in this department because they will have information relating to Sainsbury’s performance including profit and loss figures, balance sheet and the costs of running Sainsbury’s. PowerPoint presentation showing sales figures could be used by updating knowledge for seeing how much profit they have made during a period of time. This is because so they can know what needs to be done IF they are making less profit. It also updates knowledge to see how well they are doing within sales figures. This is important in Sainsbury’s because PowerPoint presentations that show sales figures allows the company to know how much profit they have made and how well they are doing currently. It is important that the finance department deals with this because they will have an amount of information that includes costs, sales and how much profit the company is making.

Thursday, November 14, 2019

The Impact of Digital Media on Consumer Spending Essay examples -- Con

The impact of digital media on consumer spending has had a positive and negative impact on the average consumer. While digital media has opened up new businesses and career fields, simultaneously it has closed and decimated traditional â€Å"brick and mortar† establishments, decreasing the need for sales professionals. Many years prior to the affordability of personal computers in the 1980s, consumers were hunter-gatherers, whereas their actual jobs were hunting and gathering food for everyday subsistence. Once humankind evolved, trading and bartering came into play along with an increased level of occupational specialization. As the world population increased, natural resources decreased, innovation and transportation systems improved, and trade became the vehicle for survival and wealth building. Fast forward to present day, and we can see three major impacts digital media has had on consumer spending, the ease of accessibility for the consumer, the financial benefit to the online retailer, and the impact to the traditional â€Å"brick and mortar† establishments. Seeing that we are becoming more of a sedentary society, ease of accessibility is critical in the influencing consumers spending habits. Fast food restaurants, microwave foodstuffs, and â€Å"instant† products all have one major advantage to the consumer†¦they save time. Consumers spend an average of 8.6 hours working per day (Labor), therefore with only 24-hours in the day; any product or process that can save precious minutes could be destined for success. Online shopping is only a few clicks away, and the product you select will be at your doorstep in a relatively short period. Additionally, with internet accessibility, consumers spend less time and resources researching products... ...rt journey towards insolvency. Works Cited Internet Retailer, Portal to E-commerce Intelligence. (2012). Trends and Data, Consumers. Chicago, IL: Retrieved from http://www.internetretailer.com/trends/consumers/ Internet Retailer, Portal to E-commerce Intelligence. (2012). Trends and Data, Sales. Chicago, IL: Retrieved from http://www.internetretailer.com/trends/sales/ United States Department of Labor, Bureau of Labor Statistics. (2011). American Time Use Survey. Washington, DC: Retrieved from http://www.bls.gov/tus/charts/ Hubbard, R. G., & O’Brien, A. P. (2010). Macroeconomics. (3rd ed.). Boston, MA: Pearson. United States Department of Commerce, Census Bureau, and International Trade Administration; Advocacy-funded research by Kathryn Kobe (2007). Washington, DC: Retrieved from http://www.sba.gov/advo/research/rs299.pdf The Impact of Digital Media on Consumer Spending Essay examples -- Con The impact of digital media on consumer spending has had a positive and negative impact on the average consumer. While digital media has opened up new businesses and career fields, simultaneously it has closed and decimated traditional â€Å"brick and mortar† establishments, decreasing the need for sales professionals. Many years prior to the affordability of personal computers in the 1980s, consumers were hunter-gatherers, whereas their actual jobs were hunting and gathering food for everyday subsistence. Once humankind evolved, trading and bartering came into play along with an increased level of occupational specialization. As the world population increased, natural resources decreased, innovation and transportation systems improved, and trade became the vehicle for survival and wealth building. Fast forward to present day, and we can see three major impacts digital media has had on consumer spending, the ease of accessibility for the consumer, the financial benefit to the online retailer, and the impact to the traditional â€Å"brick and mortar† establishments. Seeing that we are becoming more of a sedentary society, ease of accessibility is critical in the influencing consumers spending habits. Fast food restaurants, microwave foodstuffs, and â€Å"instant† products all have one major advantage to the consumer†¦they save time. Consumers spend an average of 8.6 hours working per day (Labor), therefore with only 24-hours in the day; any product or process that can save precious minutes could be destined for success. Online shopping is only a few clicks away, and the product you select will be at your doorstep in a relatively short period. Additionally, with internet accessibility, consumers spend less time and resources researching products... ...rt journey towards insolvency. Works Cited Internet Retailer, Portal to E-commerce Intelligence. (2012). Trends and Data, Consumers. Chicago, IL: Retrieved from http://www.internetretailer.com/trends/consumers/ Internet Retailer, Portal to E-commerce Intelligence. (2012). Trends and Data, Sales. Chicago, IL: Retrieved from http://www.internetretailer.com/trends/sales/ United States Department of Labor, Bureau of Labor Statistics. (2011). American Time Use Survey. Washington, DC: Retrieved from http://www.bls.gov/tus/charts/ Hubbard, R. G., & O’Brien, A. P. (2010). Macroeconomics. (3rd ed.). Boston, MA: Pearson. United States Department of Commerce, Census Bureau, and International Trade Administration; Advocacy-funded research by Kathryn Kobe (2007). Washington, DC: Retrieved from http://www.sba.gov/advo/research/rs299.pdf

Monday, November 11, 2019

Local Business Bus/210 Essay

I use Wal-Mart frequently. My husband works at Wal-Mart but I think I’m in there more than him. We buy our food, clothing, electronics, toiletries, and necessities from there. Since I am the spouse of an employee, I receive a discount card so that makes me more drawn to the business. The first component of Wal-Mart is business commerce. Business commerce is when Wal-Mart exchange good and services with other businesses. For example, Wal-Mart has a hair salon service; I love to get my hair done every other week. Also, many Wal-Marts provide banking services and some fast food services. Wal-Mart has stock trades also. Another main component of Wal-Mart is business occupation. Business occupation is the acquired set of specialized skills and abilities that allows Wal-Mart to create valuable goods and services. When my husband started at Wal-Mart he had to undergo several trainings to ensure that he understands the business and also that he provides customers with excellent services. Wal-Mart provides thorough training to its employees so that they can keep the customers coming back. Customers always value great customer service. I think this is one way Wal-Mart remains ahead of its competitors. The last main component of Wal-Mart is business organization. Business organization is the system of task and authority relationship which coordinates and controls the interactions between people so that they work toward a common goal. Wal-Mart’s common goal is to provide low prices. They try to provide lower prices than their competitors. They are about saving their customers money. They have reduced the costs of their retail and other products in the store. There are many Wal-Marts around the world and they provide the same services in all of them. I love Wal-Mart and I agree that they have prices lower than many other retailers. I definitely agree with their slogan, it is so true. â€Å"Save money, Live better†.

Saturday, November 9, 2019

Careercup Top 150 Questions

Cracking the Technical Interview by Gayle Laakmann, CareerCup. com 150 Technical Interview Questions and Solutions, written by experts. PLUS:  »  »  » Behind the scenes look at Google Microsoft, Amazon and Yahoo interviews. Interview War Stories: the view from the other side. Advice on how to approach 24 types of interview questions. Copyright Information Copyright 2009 by Gayle Laakmann All rights reserved exclusively for [email  protected] google. com www. careercup. com Table of Contents Introduction Practice Interviews. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 6 The Microsoft Interview. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 7 The Amazon Interview . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 8 The Google Interview . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 9 The Yahoo Interview . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 10 Interview War Stories . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 11 Interview Questions. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 18 Chapter 1 Chapter 2 Chapter 3 Chapter 4 Chapter 5 Chapter 6 Chapter 7 Chapter 8 Chapter 9 Chapter 10 Chapter 11 Chapter 12 Chapter 13 Chapter 14 Applied Mathematics. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 19 Arrays & Hash Tables. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 21 Bit Manipulation . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 23 Brain Teasers . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 25 C / C++ . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 27 Counting and Combinatorics . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 29 Database. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 31 Debugging Existing Code. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 33 Games . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 35 Java. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 37 Large Scale & Memory Limits . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 39 Linked Lists . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 41 Low Level . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 43 Matrix. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 45 4  © 2009 CAREERCUP exclusively for [email  protected] google. com Table of ContentsChapter 15 Chapter 16 Chapter 17 Chapter 18 Chapter 19 Chapter 20 Chapter 21 Chapter 22 Chapter 23 Chapter 24 Networking . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 47 Object Oriented Design . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 49 Probability and Randomness . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 51 Software and System Design . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 53 Sorting and Searching . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 55 Stacks and Queues . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 57 Strings . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 59 Testing . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 62 Threads And Locks . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 4 Trees and Graphs . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 66 Solutions . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 69  © 20 09 CAREERCUP 5 Practice Interviews Studying helps, but nothing can prepare you like the real thing. Each CareerCup interviewer has given over a hundred interviews at Google, Microsoft, or Amazon. To nail your interview, sit down with a trained interviewer and get their experienced feedback. See www. careercup. om/interview for more details. One Hour Interview with Real Interviewers Our interviewers will give you a real interview, just like you’d get at Google, Microsoft or Amazon. We’ll test you on the same types of questions that they do. We’ll grade you the same way they do. How can we do this? We’ve done over 100 interviews each for these companies. We’ve screened resumes. We’ve been part of their hiring committees. We know what they want. We’ll Also Give You†¦  »  »  »  »  » An . mp3 recording of your interview. Feedback on where you shined and where you struggled. Specific suggestions on how to improve.Instructions on how to approach tough problems Lessons on what interviewers look for in your code. A Typical Interview A typical interview includes a brief discussion of your resume and one or more technical questions. Each interview will do coding via a shared document. When the interview is completed, we’ll give you immediate feedback on how you did while it’s still fresh in your mind. Later that day, you’ll receive an mp3 of the interview to refresh your memory. Schedule Your Interview Today! See http://www. careercup. com/interview for pricing and details! 6  © 2009 CAREERCUP xclusively for [email  protected] google. com The Microsoft Interview Microsoft wants smart people. Geeks. People who are passionate about technology. You probably won’t be tested on the ins and outs of C++ APIs, but you will be expected to write code on the board. In a typical interview, you’ll show up at Microsoft at some time in the morning and fill out initial paper work. Youà ¢â‚¬â„¢ll have a short interview with a recruiter where he or she will give you a sample question. Be nice to your recruiters; while they may not evaluate your technical skills in depth, they can fight for you to be hired – or not.Throughout the day, you’ll move around from interviewer to interviewer, visiting each one in their office. Use this time to look around and get a feel for what the team culture. Interviewers are not allowed to share their feedback on you with other interviewers, due to concerns of bias. Nonetheless, many sources indicate that some feedback is shared. When you complete your interviews with a team, you might speak with a hiring manager. If so, that’s a great sign! It likely means that you passed the interviews with a particular team. It’s now down to the hiring manDefinitely Prepare: ager’s decision.You might get a decision that day, or it might be a week. After one week of no word from HR, send them a friendly email asking for a status update. â€Å"Why do you want to work for Microsoft? † In this question, Microsoft wants to see that you’re passionate about technology. A great answer might be, â€Å"I’ve been using Microsoft software as long as I can remember, and I’m really impressed at how Microsoft creates manages to create a product that is universally excellent. For example, I’ve been using Visual Studio recently to learn game programming, and it’s APIs are excellent. † Note how this shows a passion for technology!What’s Unique: You’ll only reach the hiring manager if you’ve done well, but if you do, that’s a great sign! [email  protected] google. com  © 2009 CAREERCUP 7 The Amazon Interview Amazon’s recruiting process usually begins with one or two phone screens in which you interview with a specific team. The engineer who interviews you will usually ask you to write simple code and read it aloud on the pho ne. They will ask a broad set of questions to explore what areas of technology you’re familiar with. Next, you fly to Seattle for four or five interviews with one or two teams which have selected you based on your resume and phone interviews.You will have to code on a whiteboard, and some interviewers will stress other skills. Interviewers are each assigned a specific area to probe and may seem very different from each other. They can not see other feedback until they have submitted their own and they are discouraged from discussing it until the hiring meeting. Amazon’s â€Å"bar raiser† interviewer is charged with keeping the interview bar high. They attend special training and will interview candidates outside their group in order to balance out the group itself.If one interview seems significantly harder and different, that’s most likely the bar raiser. This person has both significant experience with interviews Definitely Prepare: and veto power in th e hiring decision. You Amazon is a web-based company, and will meet with your recruiter at the end of the day. that means that they care about scale. Once your interviewers have entered their feedback, they will meet to discuss it. They will be the people making the hiring decision. While Amazon’s recruiters are excellent at following up with candidates, occasionally there are delays.If you haven’t heard from Amazon within a week, we recommend a friendly email. Make sure you prepare questions in â€Å"Large Scale. † You don’t need a background in distributed systems to answer these questions. Just answer the question for one system and then think, how does your solution change with multiple computers? Additionally, Amazon tends to ask a lot of questions that are based in mathematics and randomness. What’s Unique: The Bar Raiser, who is brought in from a different team to keep the bar high. 8  © 2009 CAREERCUP exclusively for [email  protected] google. com The Google InterviewThere are many scary stories floating around about Google interviews, but it’s mostly just that: stories. The interview is not terribly different from Microsoft’s or Amazon’s. However, because Google HR can be a little disorganized, we recommend being proactive in communication. A Google engineer performs the first phone screen, so expect tough technical questions. On your onsite interview, you’ll interview with four to six people, one of whom will be a lunch interviewer. Interviewer feedback is kept confidential from the other interviewers, so you can be assured that you enter each interview with blank slate.Your lunch interviewer doesn’t submit feedback, so this is a great opportunity to ask honest questions. Written feedback is submitted to a hiring committee of engineers to make a hire/no-hire recommendation. Feedback is typically broken down into four categories (Analytical Ability, Coding, Experience and Commun ication) and you are given a score from 1. 0 to 4. 0 overall. The hiring committee understands that you can’t be expected to excel in every interview, but if multiple people raise the same red flag (arrogance, poor coding skills, etc), that can disqualify you.A hiring committee typically wants to see one interviewer who is an â€Å"enthusiastic endorser. † In other words, a packet with scores of 3. 6, 3. 1, 3. 1 and 2. 6 is better than all 3. 1’s. Your phone screen is usually not a factor in the final decision. The Google hiring process can be slow. If you don’t hear back within one week, politely ask your recruiter for an update. A lack of response says nothing about your performance. Definitely Prepare: As a web-based company, Google cares about how to design scalable system. So, make sure you prepare question from â€Å"Large Scale. Additionally, many Google interviewers will ask questions involving bit shifting and Bit Manipulation, so please brush u p on these questions. What’s Different: Your interviewers do not make the hiring decision. Rather, they enter feedback which is passed to a hiring committee. The hiring committee recommends a decision which can be—though rarely is—rejected by Google executives. [email  protected] google. com  © 2009 CAREERCUP 9 The Yahoo Interview Resume Selection & Screening: While Yahoo tends to only recruit at the top 10 – 20 schools, other candidates can still get interviewed throughYahoo’s job board (or – better yet – if they can get an internal referral). If you’re one of the lucky ones selected, your interview process will start off with a phone screen. Your phone screen will be with a senior employee (tech lead, manager, etc). Onsite Interview: You will typically interview with 6 – 7 people on the same team for 45 minutes each. Each interviewer will have an area of focus. For example, one interviewer might focus on databases, while another interviewer might focus on your understanding of computer architecture.Interviews will often be composed as follows: 5 minutes: General conversation. Tell me about yourself, your projects, etc. 20 minutes: Coding question. For example, implement merge sort. 20 minutes: System design. For example, design a large distributed cache. These questions will often focus on an area from your past experience or on something your interviewer is curDefinitely Prepare: rently working on. Decision: At the end of the day, you will likely meet with a Program Manager or someone else for a general conversation (product demos, concerns about the company, your competing offers, etc).Meanwhile, your interviewers will discuss your performance and attempt to come to a decision. The hiring manager has the ultimate say and will weigh the positive feedback against the negative. If you have done well, you will often get a decision that day, but this is not always the case. There can be many rea sons that you might not be told for several days – for example, the team may feel it needs to interview several other people. Yahoo, almost as a rule, asks questions about system design, so make sure you prepare that. They want to know that you can not only write code, but that you can design software.Don’t worry if you don’t have a background in this – you can still reason your way through it! What’s Unique: Your phone interview will likely be performed by someone with more influence, such as a hiring manager. Yahoo is also unusual in that it often gives a decision (if you’re hired) on the same day. Your interviewers will discuss your performance while you meet with a final interviewer. 10  © 2009 CAREERCUP exclusively for [email  protected] google. com Interview War Stories The View from the Other Side of the Front, by Peter BaileyFor the eager candidate getting ready for a big job interview, Cracking the Technical Interview is an inva luable reference, containing excellent coaching and practice material that gives you an inside edge on the interview process. However, as you go over your old data structures textbook and drill yourself with homemade discrete math flash cards, don’t make the mistake of thinking of the interview as a kind of high-pressure game show – that if you just give all the right answers to the tech questions, you too can win a shiny new career (this week, on Who Wants to be a Software Engineer? While the technical questions on computer science obviously are very important, the most important interview question is not covered in this guidebook. In fact, it’s often the single most important question in your interviewers’ minds as they grill you in that little room. Despite the questions on polymorphism and heaps and virtual machines, the question they really want an answer to is †¦ Would I have a beer with this guy? Don’t look at me like that, I’m s erious! Well, I may be embellishing a little, but hear me out.The point I’m trying to make is that interviewers, especially those that you might work with, are probably just as anxious as you are. Nonsense, you say, as a nervous young professional, checking your pants for lint while you bite your fingernails, waiting for the interview team to show up in the front lobby. After all, this is the big leagues, and these guys are just waiting for you to slip up so they can rip you apart, laugh at your shriveled corpse, and grind your career dreams to dust beneath the heels of their boots. Right? Just like pledge week, back in freshman year?Right? Hmmm? Nothing could be further from the truth. The team of developers and managers interviewing you have their own tasks and projects waiting for them, back at their own desks. Believe me, they’re hoping that every interview is going to be the last one. They’d rather be doing anything else. There might be a batch of upcoming projects looming on their calendar, and they need more manpower if they’re going to even have a prayer of making their deadline. But the last guy the agency sent over was a complete flake who railed about Microsoft’s evil for half an hour.And the one before that couldn’t code his way out of a wet paper bag without using copy-and-paste. Sheesh, they think, where is HR getting these guys? How hard can it be to hire one lousy person? While they may not literally be asking themselves â€Å"Would I have a beer with this guy (or gal)†, they are looking to see how well you would fit in with the team, and how you would affect team chemistry. If they hire you, you’re all going to be spending a lot of time together for 11  © 2009 CAREERCUP exclusively for [email  protected] google. com Interview War Stories he next few months or years, and they want to know that they can rely on you – and maybe even come to consider you a friend and colleague. The y want to know that they can depend on you. And as tempting as it might be to them to just settle and hire the next person who comes along, they know better. In many companies, particularly large U. S. companies, it’s harder to fire somebody than it is to hire somebody. (Welcome to the US: Land of Lawsuits! ) If they hire a dud, they’re stuck with them. That person might be unproductive or, even worse, a drain on the team’s productivity.So they keep interviewing, until they find the right person. They know that it’s better to reject a good candidate than hire a bad one. Some of those interviews are real doozies. Once you’ve interviewed long enough, you build up a repertoire of horror stories. War stories, of candidates who looked promising on paper until the interviews went terribly, terribly wrong. These war stories are not only humorous – they’re also instructive. Names have been changed to protect the innocent – or downright ridiculous. zyxwvutsrqponmlkjihgfedcba ZYXWVUTSRQPONMLKJIHGFEDCBA [email  protected] google. comkjlslen 0987654321+_=-)(*&^%$#@! ~[]{};’:†,. /? ABCDEZYXW abcdeyxw asdsasdFGJwRXGs75rpqR3oFWHMJHp-RQ. L–LqJ. H-rsdkktNNsasdf [email  protected] google. com [email  protected] google. com  © 2009 CAREERCUP 12 Interview War Stories Pop Divas Need Not Apply Leonard was a very promising C++ coder, three years out of college, with a solid work history and an impressive skill set. He proved on the phone screen that he was above-average technically, and so he was invited in for an interview. We needed a savvy C++ person to work on a piece of middleware that interfaced with our database, and Leonard seemed like a sure fit.However, once we started talking to him, things went south in a hurry. He spent most of the interview criticizing every tool and platform that we questioned him on. We used SQL Server as our database? Puhleease. We were planning to switch to Oracle s oon, right? What’s that? Our team used Tool A to do all our coding in? Unacceptable. He used Tool B, and only Tool B, and after he was hired, we’d all have to switch to Tool B. And we’d have to switch to Java, because he really wanted to work with Java, despite the fact that 75 percent of the codebase would have to be rewritten.We’d thank him later. And oh, by the way, he wouldn’t be making any meetings before ten o’clock. Needless to say, we encouraged Leonard to seek opportunities elsewhere. It wasn’t that his ideas were bad – in fact, he was â€Å"technically† right about many things, and his (strong) opinions were all backed with solid fact and sound reason (except for the ten o’clock thing – we think he may have just been making a â€Å"power play†. ) But it was obvious that, if hired, Leonard wasn’t going to play well with others – he would have been toxic kryptonite for team chem istry.He actually managed to offend two of the team members during the forty-five minutes of his interview. Leonard also made the mistake of assuming that Code Purity and Algorithm Beauty were always more important than a business deadline. In the real world, there are always compromises to be made, and knowing how to work with the business analysts is just as important as knowing how to refactor a blob of code. If Leonard would not have gotten along with other IT people, he definitely wouldn’t have gotten along with the business folks. Maybe you can get away ith hiring a Leonard if he’s one of the best ten coders in the world (he wasn’t). But he was the classic failure example for the â€Å"Would you have a beer with this guy? † test. 13  © 2009 CAREERCUP exclusively for [email  protected] google. com Interview War Stories What We Have Here is Failure to Communicate Trisha was a mid-level Java developer with a solid history of middleware and JSP work on her resume. Since she was local, we invited her in for an interview without a phone screen. When we started asking her questions, it quickly became obvious that Trisha was a woman of few words.Her answers were short and often composed of â€Å"yes/no† responses, even to questions that were meant to start a dialog. Once she did start opening up, I still wasn’t sure she was actually talking. I saw her lips moving, and heard mumbling sounds coming out, but it wasn’t anything that sounded like English. I’m not sure if Trisha was nervous or just shy, but either way, I had to ask her numerous times to repeat herself. Now I was the one getting nervous! I didn’t want to be the guy who â€Å"ruined† the interview, so I pulled back on my questions. The other folks in the room and I exchanged uneasy glances.We felt like we were on a Seinfeld episode. It was almost impossible to understand Trisha, and when she did speak up, her halting, uncertain, c onfused speech patterns made us feel more like code breakers than interviewers. I am not exaggerating to say that I did not understand a single answer she gave during the interview. Knowing, alone, isn’t good enough. You’re going to be talking with other technical people, and you’re going to be talking to customers, and sales reps, and Betty from Marketing. You will write something eventually, whether it’s documentation, or a project plan, or a requirements document.The word processor might correct your spelling, but it won’t correct your lousy writing. The ability to communicate thoughts and ideas, in a clear, concise manner, is an absolutely invaluable skill that employers seek. The same goes for verbal communication. I used to work with a co-worker who doubled the length of every meeting he was in, because he could not answer a question in less than ten minutes. â€Å"Hey, Dennis, what time is it? † â€Å"Well, that’s kind of inte resting, because I just happened to be reading an article on cesium clocks and leap seconds and the history of the Gregorian Calendar and †¦ I’ll spare you the rest. [email  protected] google. com  © 2009 CAREERCUP 14 Interview War Stories You Can Count on Me, Just Not Until Early Afternoon Ahhh, 1999. The crest of the dot-com bubble, and the tightest labor market in history. Our company was racing to expand its development team, and we would have hired a German Shepherd if it knew HTML. Instead, we wound up hiring Ian. We should’ve hired the dog. Ian was a cheerful, friendly guy who had a gift of natural charisma. He got along fantastically with all of the interviewers, and seemed very intelligent.Skillwise, he was adequate. He hadn’t written a single line of computer code outside of his college courses, and didn’t even have his own e-mail address. When we gave Ian the chance to ask us questions at the end of the interview, he asked about flexib le work hours, and how soon he could take vacation time. Instead of showing an interest in the career opportunities, or in company’s growth prospects, he asked whether he could take the all-you-could-drink break room soda home with him. The questions grew more bizarre from there. Ian was very interested in our Legal Assistance benefit.He wanted to know if it covered the cost of filing lawsuits, if it covered him if he got sued himself, if it applied to any lawsuits he currently was involved in, and if he could â€Å"theoretically† use it to sue the company itself. He also asked us if he could use it to help him â€Å"fix† some unpaid speeding tickets. In any other year, that should have been it for Ian right there. But, in 1999, we were hiring anybody who was even remotely competent. Ian collected paychecks from us for eighteen months, and he was about as productive as a traffic cone.He usually sauntered into the office around ten-thirty with some sort of lame e xcuse (by my count, he had to wait for the cable guy sixteen times in a six-month period). He usually killed the morning by answering e-mail and playing ping-pong, before breaking for a two-hour lunch. After lunch, it was more pingpong, and maybe an hour of writing bad code, before bolting the office sometime around three. He was the dictionary definition of unreliable. Remember, your potential future team members need to know that they can rely on you. And they need to know that you won’t need constant supervision and hand-holding.They need to know that you’re able to figure things out on your own. One of the most important messages that you, as a candidate, can convey in your interview is hiring me will make your lives easier. In fact, this is a large part of the reason for the famously difficult interview questions at places like Amazon and Google; if you can handle that kind of unpredictable pressure in an interview, then you stand a good chance of being useful to them on real projects. To cite a more subtle example, once I was on a four person team that was desperately trying to recruit new members to help work on an old pile of software.It was a real mess; we’d inherited a nasty ball of spaghetti, and we needed people who could jump in, figure things out, and be part of the solution. There was one very smart fellow, Terry, who would have been a great asset for our team – 15  © 2009 CAREERCUP exclusively for [email  protected] google. com Interview War Stories but we didn’t hire him, despite his excellent technical and personal skills. It was because he insisted on meticulous written instructions for every step of the coding process.He wasn’t going to make a suggestion or take any initiative – or blow his nose, for that matter – without a mile-long audit trail and a dozen signatures. While he insisted that he worked that way for reasons of quality (a defensible point), we got the impression that it had more to do with butt-covering, and we simply didn’t have the time for that kind of bureaucracy. Terry would have been an excellent fit in a government or aerospace IT department, something that required ISO 9000 procedures. But he would have never fit into our team; he would have been a burden, not an asset.[email  protected] google. com  © 2009 CAREERCUP 16 Interview War Stories My Spider Senses are Tingling I can think of lots of interviews that just fell into the general category of weird and uncomfortable:  »  »  »  »  »  » The Java coder who apparently considered hygiene optional, and had the interview room smelling like week-old blue cheese within ten minutes (my eyes were watering). The young fresh-out-of-college graduate with a tongue piercing that kept tick-tick-ticking against his teeth as he talked (after half an hour, it was like Chinese water torture).The girl who wore an iPod through her interview, with the volume turned loud enough that s he actually had to ask the interviewers to repeat themselves a few times. The poor, hyper-nervous fellow who was sweating like a marathon runner for half an hour. The girl who wore a T-shirt with an obscene political slogan to her interview. The guy who asked (seriously) at the end of his interview, â€Å"So, are there any hot chicks in our department? † Those are the interviews where we politely thank the people for their time, shake their hand (except for the sweaty guy), then turn to each other after the door closes and ask – did that really just happen?Nobody is saying that you have to be a bland, boring robot in a Brooks Brothers suit and tie. Remember, the interview team wants you to be â€Å"the one†, but they’re also very worried about the possibility that you’re going to be more of a distraction than an asset. Don’t talk or behave in a way that will set off their early warning radar. Whether or not somebody bothers to behave profess ionally during an interview is often a very good indicator of what kind of teammate they’re going to be. Rudimentary social skills are part of the answer to â€Å"Would I have a beer with this guy? , or at least, â€Å"Will I mind working next to this guy for six months? † From the interviewer’s point of view, they’re picking a neighbor that they’re going to live and work with 200 hours per week for foreseeable future. Would you really want a neighbor that smelled like a hog rendering plant? 17  © 2009 CAREERCUP exclusively for [email  protected] google. com Interview Questions Study hard, practice and good luck! How this Book is Organized The interview questions in this book are grouped into categories, with a page preceding each category offering advice and other information.Within each category, the questions are sorted by approximate level of difficulty. Solutions for all questions are at the back. How to Use this Book An effective intervi ew is not about memorizing interview questions, but rather, about applying an understanding of concepts and demonstrating your problem solving ability. Use these questions to find the gaps in your knowledge and to learn problem solving techniques that you can apply to new questions. Advice for Devs Your interview will be most likely not be conducted on a computer. Thus, when you practice the problems in this book, we recommend writing them down on paper first.Then, type your solution into the computer exactly as you wrote it and see how you did. Special Advice for SDETs Not only do SDETs have to be great testers, but they also have to be great coders. Thus, we recommend that you complete the coding problems in this book with an eye for testing them. Even when the question doesn’t specifically ask it, you should ask yourself, â€Å"how would I test this? † Remember: any problem can be an SDET problem. Suggestions and Corrections While we do our best to ensure that all t he solutions are correct, mistakes will be made. Moreover, sometimes there is no â€Å"right† answer.If you’d like to offer a suggestion or correction, please submit it at http:// xrl. us/ccbook [email  protected] google. com  © 2009 CAREERCUP 18 Applied Mathematics How to Approach: CHAPTER-1 Many of the so-called â€Å"Applied Mathematics† problems read as brain teasers at first, but can be worked through in a logical way. Just remember to rely on the rules of mathematics to develop an approach, and then to carefully translate that idea into code. Example: Given two numbers m and n, write a method to return the first number r that is divisible by both (e. g. , the least common multiple).The Approach: What does it mean for r to be divisible by m and n? It means that all the primes in m must go into r, and all primes in n must be in r. What if m and n have primes in common? For example, if m is divisible by 3^5 and n is divisible by 3^7, what does this mean a bout r? It means r must be divisible by 3^7. The Rule: For each prime p such that p^a m (e. g. , m is divisible by p^a) and p^b n, r must be divisible by p^max(a, b) The Algorithm: Define q to be 1. for each prime number p less than m and n: find the largest a and b such that p^a m and p^b n let q = q * p^max(a, b) return qThings to Watch Out For: 1. 2. Be careful with the difference in precision between floats vs. doubles. Don’t assume that a value (such as the slope of a line) is an int unless you’ve been told so. Prime Numbers 1. 2. Every number can be written as a product of primes. Example: 504 = 2^3 * 3^2 * 7 f x is divisible by y, then every prime factor in y must be found in x. Example: If 504 is divisible by y, then y could be 168 (2^3 * 3 * 7), or 21 (3 * 7), or 4 (2^2), or many other things. Y could not, however, be equal to 10 (5 * 2), since 5 is not found in x 19  © 2009 CAREERCUP exclusively for [email  protected] oogle. com Applied Mathematics CH APTER-1 1. 1 Write a method to generate the nth Fibonacci number _______________________________________________________________________pg 69 1. 2 Write a method to count the number of 2’s between 0 and n. EXAMPLE input: 35 output: 14 [list of 2’s: 2, 12, 20, 21, 22, 23, 24, 25, 26, 27, 28, 29, 32] _______________________________________________________________________pg 70 1. 3 Given two lines on a Cartesian plane, determine whether the two lines would intersect. _______________________________________________________________________pg 74 1. Given two squares on a two dimensional plane, find a line that would cut these two squares in half. _______________________________________________________________________pg 75 1. 5 Write an algorithm which computes the number of trailing zeros in n factorial. EXAMPLE input: 11 output: 2 (11! = 39916800) _______________________________________________________________________pg 76 1. 6 Write a function that adds two numbers. You sh ould not use + or any arithmetic operators. _______________________________________________________________________pg 77 1. Write a method to implement *, – , / operations. You should use only the + operator. _______________________________________________________________________pg 79 1. 8 Design an algorithm to find the kth number such that the only prime factors are 3, 5, and 7. _______________________________________________________________________pg 81 1. 9 A circus is designing a tower routine consisting of people standing atop one another’s shoulders. For practical and aesthetic reasons, each person must be both shorter and lighter than the person below him or her.Given the heights and weights of each person in the circus, write a method to compute the largest possible number of people in such a tower. EXAMPLE: Input(ht, wt) : (65, 100) (70, 150) (56, 90) (75, 190) (60, 95) (68, 110) Output: The longest tower is length 6 and includes from top to bottom: (56,90) ( 60,95) (65,100) (68,110) (70,150) (75,190) _______________________________________________________________________pg 84 1. 10 Given a two dimensional graph with 6000 points on it, find a line which passes the most number of points. ______________________________________________________________________pg 86  © 2009 CAREERCUP 20 Arrays & Hash Tables How to Approach CHAPTER-2 While not all problem can be solved with a hash table, a shocking number of interview problems can be. Keeping track of which items you’ve already seen? Hash table. Needing a way to efficiently look up data? Hash table. The list goes on and on. You should become very extremely comfortable with hash tables: how to implement them and how to use them. Hash Tables A hash table is a data structure that associates keys with values for O(1) lookup.Hash tables are frequently, though not always, implemented with an array. A simple implementation of a hash table that hashes a string to a Person is as follows: class HashTable { Person[] data = new Person[MAX_HASH_KEY]; int getId(string s) { /* return a key for this string */ }; bool contains(string key) { int id = getId(key); if (data247) return true; return false; } void insert(string s, Person p) { data[getId(s)]; } Note: This implementation does not handle collision. Collisions can be handled by â€Å"chaining† (eg, using a linked list), or a variety of other ways. Vector (Dynamically Resizing Array):A vector, or a dynamically resizing array, is an array that resizes itself as needed while still providing O(1) access. A typical implementation is that when a vector is full, the array doubles in size. Each doubling takes a long time (O(n)), but happens so rarely that its asymptotic time is still O(1). 21  © 2009 CAREERCUP exclusively for [email  protected] google. com Arrays CHAPTER-2 2. 1 Suppose we have an array a1, a2, †¦ , an, b1, b2, †¦ , bn. Implement an algorithm to change this array to a1, b1, a2, b2, †¦ , an , bn. _______________________________________________________________________pg 87 . 2 Design an algorithm and write code to remove the duplicate characters in a string without using any additional buffer. NOTE: One or two additional variables is fine. An extra copy of the array is not. FOLLOW UP Write the test cases for this method. _______________________________________________________________________pg 88 2. 3 You are given an array of integers (both positive and negative). Find the continuous sequence with the largest sum. Return the sum. EXAMPLE input: {2, -8, 3, -2, 4, -10} output: 5 [ eg, {3, -2, 4} ] _______________________________________________________________________pg 90 2. Design an algorithm to find all pairs of integers within an array which sum to a specified value. _______________________________________________________________________pg 91 2. 5 An array A[1†¦ n] contains all the integers from 0 to n except for one number which is missing. In this problem, we cannot access an entire integer in A with a single operation. The elements of A are represented in binary, and the only operation we can use to access them is â€Å"fetch the jth bit of A[i]†, which takes constant time. Write code to find the missing integer. Can you do it in O(n) time? ______________________________________________________________________pg 93  © 2009 CAREERCUP 22 Bit Manipulation How to Approach: CHAPTER-3 Bit manipulation can be a scary thing to many candidate, but it doesn’t need to be! If you’re shaky on bit manipulation, we recommend doing a couple arithmetic-like problems to boost your skills. Compute the following by hand: 1010 – 0001 1010 > 1 1010 + 0110 1001^1001 0xFF – 1 1100^1010 1001 & 1100 0xAB + 0x11 If you’re still uncomfortable, examine very careful what happens when you do subtraction, addition, etc in base 10. Can you repeat that work in base 2? Things to Watch Out For: It’s really easy to make m istakes on these problem so, be careful! When you’re writing code, stop and thinking about what you’re writing every couple lines. When you’re done, check through your entire code. If you’re bit shifting, what happens when the digits get shifted off the end? Make sure to think about this case to ensure that you’re handling it correctly. 1 & 0 = 0 1 | 0 = 1 1 ^ 0 = 1 0 & 1 = 0 0 | 1 = 1 0 ^ 1 = 1 1 & 1 = 1 1 | 1 = 1 1 ^ 1 = 0  » And (&): 0 & 0 = 0 Or (|): 0 | 0 = 0 Xor (^): 0 ^ 0 = 0 Left Shift: x > 2 = 00000110 00011001 >> 4 = 00000001 exclusively for [email  protected] oogle. com 23  © 2009 CAREERCUP Bit Manipulation CHAPTER-3 3. 1 Write a function int BitSwapReqd(int A, int B) to determine the number of bits required to convert integer A to integer B. EXAMPLE: _______________________________________________________________________pg 94 3. 2 If you were to write a program to swap odd and even bits in integer, what is the minimum number of in structions required? (eg, bit 0 and bit 1 are swapped, bit 2 and bit 3 are swapped, etc). EXAMPLE: _______________________________________________________________________pg 95 3. 3 Write a method which finds the maximum of two numbers.You should not use if-else or any other comparison operator. EXAMPLE: _______________________________________________________________________pg 96 3. 4 Given a (decimal – e. g. 3. 72) number that is passed in as a string, print the binary representation. If the number can not be represented accurately in binary, print â€Å"ERROR† _______________________________________________________________________pg 97 3. 5 You are given two 32-bit numbers, N and M, and a two bit positions, i and j. Write a method to set all bits between i and j in N equal to M (eg, M becomes a substring of N located at i and starting j).EXAMPLE: _______________________________________________________________________pg 99 3. 6 Write a function to swap a number in plac e without temporary variables. ______________________________________________________________________pg 100 3. 7 Given an integer, print the next smallest and next largest number that have the same number of 1 bits in their binary representation. ______________________________________________________________________pg 101 input: N = 10000000000, M = 10101, i = 2, j = 6 output: N = 10001010100 Input: 5, 10 Output: 10 Input: 10001010 Output: 01000101 Input: 31, 14 Output: 2 2009 CAREERCUP 24 Brain Teasers Do companies really ask brain teasers? CHAPTER-4 While many companies, including Google and Microsoft, have policies banning brain teasers, interviews still sometimes ask these tricky questions. Advice on Approaching Brain Teasers Don’t panic when you get a brain teaser. Interviewers want to see how you tackle a problem; they don’t expect you to immediately know the answer. Start talking, and show the interviewer how you approach a problem. In many cases, you will also find that the brain teasers have some connection back to fundamental laws or theories of computer science.If you’re stuck, we recommend simplifying the problem. Solve it for a small number of items or a special case, and then see if you can generalize it. Example: You are trying to cook an egg for exactly 15 minutes, but instead of a timer, you are given two ropes which burn for exactly 1 hour each. The ropes, however, are of uneven densities – eg, half the rope length-wise might take only 2 minutes to burn. The approach: 1. 2. 3. 4. 5. 6. 7. What is important? Numbers usually have a meaning behind them. The fifteen minutes and two ropes were picked for a reason. Simplify!You can easily time one hour (burn just one rope). Now, can you time 30 minutes? That’s half the time it takes to burn one rope. Can you burn the rope twice as fast? Yes! (Light the rope at both ends. ) You’ve now learned: (1) You can time 30 minutes. (2) You can burn a rope that takes X minutes in just X/2 minutes by lighting both ends. Work backwards: if you had a rope of burn-length 30 minutes, that would let you time 15 minutes. Can you remove 30 minutes of burn-time from a rope? You can remove 30 min of burn-time from Rope #2 by lighting Rope #1 at both ends and Rope #2 at one end.Now that you have Rope #2 at burn-length 30 min, start cooking the egg and light rope #2 at the other end. When Rope #2 burns up, your egg is done! 25  © 2009 CAREERCUP exclusively for [email  protected] google. com Brain Teasers CHAPTER-4 4. 1 Add arithmetic operators (plus, minus, times, divide) to make the following expression true: 3 1 3 6 = 8. You can use any parentheses you’d like. ______________________________________________________________________pg 103 4. 2 You have a 5 quart jug and 3 quart jug, and an unlimited supply of water (but no measuring cups). How would you come up with exactly four quarts of water?NOTE: The jugs are oddly shaped, such that filling up exactly ‘half’ of the jug would be impossible. ______________________________________________________________________pg 104 4. 3 There is a building of 100 floors. If an egg drops from the Nth floor or above it will break. If it’s dropped from any floor below, it will not break. You’re given 2 eggs. Find N, while minimizing the number of drops for the worse case. ______________________________________________________________________pg 105 4. 4 A bunch of men are on an island. A genie comes down and gathers everyone together and places a magical hat on some people’s heads (e. . , at least one). The hat is magical: it can be seen by other people, but not by the wearer of the hat himself. To remove the hat, you must dunk yourself underwater at exactly midnight. If there are n people and c hats, how long does it take the men remove the crowns? The men cannot tell each other (in any way) that they have a hat. FOLLOW UP Prove that your solution is correct . ______________________________________________________________________pg 106 4. 5 There are 100 closed lockers in a hallway. A man begins by opening all the 100 lockers. Next, he closes every second locker.Then he goes to every third locker and closes it if it is open or opens it if it is closed (eg, he toggles every third locker). After his 100th pass in the hallway, in which he toggles only locker number 100, how many lockers are open? ______________________________________________________________________pg 108  © 2009 CAREERCUP 26 C / C++ How To Approach: CHAPTER-5 A good interviewer won’t demand that you code in a language you don’t profess to know. Hopefully, if you’re asked to code in C++, it’s listed on your resume. If you don’t remember all the APIs, don’t worry—your interviewer probably doesn’t either!We do recommend, however, studying up on basic C++ syntax. Pointer Syntax int p = v = Foo int *p; // Defines pointe r. &q; // Sets p to address of q. *p; // Set v to value of q. *f = new Foo(); // Initializes f. k = f->x; // Sets k equal to the value of f’s member variable. C++ Class Syntax class MyClass { private: double var; public: MyClass(double v) {var = v; } ~MyClass() {}; double Update(double v); }; double Complex::Update(double v) { var = v; return v; } C++ vs Java: A very common answer in an interview is â€Å"describe the differences between C++ and Java. If you aren’t comfortable with any of these concepts, we recommend reading up on them. 1. 2. 3. 4. 5. 6. Java runs in a virtual machine. C++ natively supports unsigned arithmetic. In Java, parameters are always passed by value (or with objects, their references are passed by value). In C++, parameters can be passed by value, pointer, or by reference. Java has built-in garbage collection. C++ allows operator overloading. C++ allows multiple inheritance of classes. Thought: Which of these might be considered strengths or w eaknesses of C++ or Java? Why? In what cases might you choose one language over the other? 7  © 2009 CAREERCUP exclusively for [email  protected] google. com C / C++ CHAPTER-5 5. 1 What is the difference between a struct and a class? Where would you use each? ______________________________________________________________________pg 109 5. 2 Write a method to print the last ten lines of an input file using C. ______________________________________________________________________pg 110 5. 3 Compare and contrast a hash table vs. an STL map. How is a hash table implemented? If the number of inputs are small, what data structure options can be used instead of a hash table? _____________________________________________________________________pg 111 5. 4 How do a virtual functions work in C++? ______________________________________________________________________pg 112 5. 5 What is the difference between deep copy and shallow copy? Explain how you would use each. _______________________ _______________________________________________pg 113 5. 6 In a class, the ‘new’ operator is used for allocating memory for new objects. Can this be done using malloc? If yes, how? If no, why not? Are there any restrictions associated with the use of malloc in place of new? _____________________________________________________________________pg 114 5. 7 What is the significance of the keyword â€Å"volatile† in C? ______________________________________________________________________pg 115 5. 8 What is name hiding in C++? ______________________________________________________________________pg 116 5. 9 Why does a destructor in base class need to be declared virtual? ______________________________________________________________________pg 117 5. 10 Write a method that takes a pointer to a Node structure as a parameter and returns a complete copy of the passed-in data structure.The Node structure contains two pointers to other Node structures. For example, the meth od signature could look like so: Node* Copy(Node* root); Note: Do not make any assumptions about the data structure – it could be a tree, linked list, graph etc. Feel free to choose the language you are most comfortable with (C# or C++ are preferred) In addition to the function code, write a complete suite of unit tests for this problem. ______________________________________________________________________pg 119 5. 11 Write a smart pointer (smart_ptr) class. _____________________________________________________________________pg 120  © 2009 CAREERCUP 28 Counting and Combinatorics How to Approach: CHAPTER-6 While some problems in this chapter are simply coding problems, understanding the mathematical solution will help you â€Å"sanity check† your solution. For example, if you know how many subsets there are of a set, you can check to make sure that your algorithm to print all subsets will give you the correct number of subsets. When computing the number of ways of d oing something, think about doing it step by step. The following two examples will illustrate this technique.How many ways can you pick k elements from n elements, if order matters and elements are not replaced? Eg – if we pick 5 different letters, â€Å"abcde† is considered to be different from â€Å"edcba†. The Approach: We have n choices for the first draw. For the second draw, we only have n-1 since one is removed. Then n-2, †¦. When we draw k times, we get down to n-k+1 choices on the last draw. So, n * (n-1) * (n-2)*†¦ * (n-k+1) The Solution: n! / (n-k)! How many ways can you pick k elements from n elements, if order does not matter and elements are not replaced? We’re now just throwing letters into a bucket. Picking â€Å"a, b† is the same thing as â€Å"b, a†.The Approach: If you compare this problem to the previous one, we’ve essentially double (or triple, quadruple, etc) counted items. That is, â€Å"abc†, à ¢â‚¬Å"acb†, â€Å"bac†, â€Å"bca†, â€Å"cab†, â€Å"cba† were all considered unique in the previous solution but now they’re considered the same. Just how many times has â€Å"abc† been included (in its other forms)? 3! times, since there are 3! ways of rearranging â€Å"abc†. In fact, every item has been included 3! times, when it should have been included just once! So, we divide our previous answer by 3! (or, more generally, k! ). We now get n! / (k! * (n-k)! ). This solution is often written as n-choose-k or nCk. 9  © 2009 CAREERCUP exclusively for [email  protected] google. com Counting and Combinatorics CHAPTER-6 6. 1 In how many different ways can a cube be painted by using three different colors of paint? ______________________________________________________________________pg 121 6. 2 Imagine a robot sitting on the upper left hand corner of an NxN grid. The robot can only move in two directions: right and down. Ho w many possible paths are there for the robot? FOLLOW-UP Imagine certain squares are â€Å"off limits†, such that the robot can not step on them. Design an algorithm to print all possible paths for the robot. _____________________________________________________________________pg 122 6. 3 Write a method to compute all permutations of a string. ______________________________________________________________________pg 123 6. 4 Implement an algorithm to print all valid (eg, properly opened and closed) combinations of n-pairs of parentheses. EXAMPLE: input: 3 (eg, 3 pairs of parentheses) output: ()()(), ()(()), (())(), ((())) ______________________________________________________________________pg 124 6. 5 Write a method that returns all subsets of a set. ______________________________________________________________________pg 125 2009 CAREERCUP 30 Database How to Approach: CHAPTER-7 You could be asked about databases in a variety of ways: write a SQL query, design a database to h old certain data, or to design a large database. We’ll go through the latter two types here. Small Database Design Imagine you are asked to design a system to represent a school’s registrar: course information, departments, course enrollment, teachers, etc. What are the key objects? Student. Professor. Course. Department. How do they relate to each other? *NOTE: I’m going to make some assumptions here for the purposes of writing up this explanation.In your interview, don’t make assumptions! Ask your interviewer instead. Many-to-Many:  » A course can belong to multiple departments, and each department can have multiple courses. So, create a separate table DepartmentCourse that acts as a â€Å"pairing† of the two. DepartmentCourse has just a department_id field and a course_id field. A student can be in multiple courses, a course can have multiple students. So, do the same as above and create a StudentCourse table. A course only has one professor. A professor can teach multiple courses. So, add a field professor_id to the Courses table.  » One-to-Many:  »Large Database Design When designing a large, scalable database, joins (which are required in the above examples), are generally very slow. Thus, you must denormalize your data. Think carefully about what when data will be used—you’ll probably need to duplicate it in multiple tables. 31  © 2009 CAREERCUP exclusively for [email  protected] google. com Database CHAPTER-7 7. 1 Write a method to find the number of employees in each department when we have the following tables: ______________________________________________________________________pg 126 7. 2 What are the different types of joins?Please explain how they differ and why certain types are better in certain situations. ______________________________________________________________________pg 127 7. 3 What is normalization? Explain the pros and cons. _________________________________________________ _____________________pg 128 7. 4 Draw a entity-relationship diagram for a database with companies, people, and professionals (people who work for companies). ______________________________________________________________________pg 129 7. 5 You have to design a database that can store terabytes of data. It should support efficient range queries. How would you do it? _____________________________________________________________________pg 130 Employees containing: Emp_ID, Emp_Name and Dept_ID (Primary key) Departments containing: Dept_Name and Dept_ID (foreign key)  © 2009 CAREERCUP 32 Debugging Existing Code How to Approach CHAPTER-8 Sometimes, in an interview, an interviewer asks you to look at a piece of code and identify the mistakes. We recommend the following approach: 1. 2. 3. Examine the code and understand what it’s expected to do. Ask your interviewer what types of data it’s expected to handle, where it’ll be used, etc. Look for syntax errors: does ever ything type check? s the class declaration correct? Look for â€Å"hot spots†:  »  »  »  »  » 4.  »  » 5. If you see float and doubles, check for precision errors If you see division, check for rounding errors If you see memory allocation, check for memory leaks If you see unsigned ints, check to see if the int might ever be negative If you see bit manipulation, check for correctness The â€Å"normal† case The boundary cases (null, 0, 1, MAX, etc) Run through the code with a few examples: Does it do everything it’s expect to? For example, if the code is supposed to return everyone in a database under 21, does it only look for students?Maybe it should be looking for teach-ers as well? Does it handle unexpected cases? What if it takes in a list and it has a loop? 6. Further Advice 1. 2. Look at the space and time complexity—can you improve it? Correct the mistakes in the code. But do so carefully! Don’t simply make changes until it work s. Deeply understand the issues and then correct them. 33  © 2009 CAREERCUP exclusively for [email  protected] google. com Debugging Existing Code 8. 1 Explain what the following code does: ((n & (n-1)) == 0) CHAPTER-8 ______________________________________________________________________pg 131 8. Find the mistake(s) in the following code: unsigned int i; for (i = 100; i ::Other { int foo() { printf(â€Å"here we are †); }; }; main() { typedef Foo typedef Derived Derived_inst; Derived_inst ii; ii. foo(); } ______________________________________________________________________pg 133  © 2009 CAREERCUP 34 Games How To Approach: CHAPTER-9 Sometimes interviewers ask these problems simply because they’re â€Å"fun,† but often, it’s also because â€Å"game† problems are heavy on object oriented design. Gaming problems tend to be more â€Å"free form† and thus they give you the chance to demonstrate how you really code.Define Data Structures W hen implementing something so free form, ask yourself, â€Å"Where can I define a class or a struct? † When in doubt, define a new class or struct. It tells the interviewer that you care about the maintainability of your code. Validate Your Assumptions Be careful about making assumptions. Suppose you’re asked to implement the word game Scrabble. Don’t assume that the dictionary will be in English—or even in that character set. It could be in any language! Ask your interviewer lots and lots of questions so that you know what to implement. Are you solving this problem once, or many times?Sometimes the solution will change depending on whether or not your code will be called multiple times. For example, suppose you’re asked to find all anagrams of a word. If you’re calling this code just once, it may be fastest just to rearrange the letters and check if they’re in the dictionary. But, if you’re going to call the code multiple time s, it’s now fastest to precompute data by iterating through all the words in the dictionary. Can you generalize your code, or part of it? If you really want to go above and beyond, try writing your code as though it were a more generalized case.For example, if you’re trying to figure out if a tic-tac-toe board has a winner, you might suggest to your interviewer solving it for the more general NxN case. If you go down this path though, be warned—sometimes problems are trickier than they appear. Also, make sure you discuss this with your interviewer so he/she knows what you’re doing. 35  © 2009 CAREERCUP exclusively for [email  protected] google. com Games CHAPTER-9 9. 1 Design an algorithm to figure out if someone has won in a game of tic-tac-toe. ______________________________________________________________________pg 135 9. The Game of Master Mind is played as follows: – The computer has four slots containing balls that are red (R), yellow (Y) , green (G) or blue (B). For example, the computer might have RGGB (eg, Slot #1 is red, Slots #2 and #3 are green, #4 is blue). – You, the user, are trying to guess the solution. You might, for example, guess YRGB. – When you guess right color for the right slot, you get a â€Å"hit†. If you guess a color that exists but is in the wrong slot, you get a â€Å"psuedo-hit†. For example, the guess YRGB has 2 hits and one pseudo-hit. For each guess, you are told the number of hits and pseudo hits.Write a method that, given a guess and a solution, returns the number of hits and pseudo hits. ______________________________________________________________________pg 137 9. 3 There is an 8Ãâ€"8 chess board in which two diagonally opposite corners have been cut off. You are given 31 dominos in which a single domino can cover exactly two squares. Can you use the 31 dominos to cover the entire board? Prove your answer (by providing an example, or showing why itâ€℠¢s impossible). ______________________________________________________________________pg 138 9. Find a way to arrange 8 queens on a chess board so that none of them share the same row, column or diagonal. ______________________________________________________________________pg 139 9. 5 Othello is played as follows: Each Othello piece is white on one side and black on the other. On your turn, you place a piece on the board so that your color is facing up. You must pick a spot such that your opponent’s pieces are either on the left and the right, or on the top and the bottom. All of your opponent’s pieces on the line between two of yours are then turned over, to become yours. Your goal is to own the most pieces.Design the game Othello. Write a method to check whether someone has won the game. ______________________________________________________________________pg 141  © 2009 CAREERCUP 36 Java How to Approach: CHAPTER-10 While Java related questions are found throughou t this book, this chapter deals with questions about the language and syntax. You generally will not find many questions like this at the larger software companies (Microsoft, Google, Amazon, etc), which tend to avoid ‘trivia’ based questions, but these questions are very common at many smaller companies. What do you do when you don’t know the answer?If you don’t know the answer to a question about the Java language, try to figure it out by doing the following: (1) Think about what other languages do. (2) Create an example of the scenario. (3) Ask yourself how you would handle the scenario if you were designing the language. Your interviewer will likely be equally—or more—impressed if you