Brain Teasers
CS/DSCI
Finance/Econ
Mathematics
Exec Team Trivia
100

A pond has an algae problem that doubles in size each day, if the pond is half full at day 24, what day will it be full?

Day 25

100

How do you determine if a number is even or odd?

Modulo operation (%)

100

What is the main difference between a stock and a bond?

A stock represents ownership, a bond represents a loan to a company or government

100

A stock price increases from $40 to $50, what is the percent increase?

10/40 = 0.25 = 25%

100

What country did Matt grow up in?

Thailand

200

You’re outside a closed room with 3 switches and 3 lightbulbs inside. You can enter the room once. How do you find which switch controls the bulb?

Turn on one switch for 5 minutes then turn it off, turn on another switch, then walk in the room

200

What's the difference between a stack and queue?

Stack = Last in first out

Queue = First in first out

200

What does “liquidity” refer to in finance?

How easily an asset can be converted to cash without losing value

200

What is the product of (x+2)(x−3)?

x^2−x−6

200

Where did Ethan complete his bachelors in Computer Science?

University of Oregon

300

A fair die is rolled twice. What is the probability that the sum equals 7?

6/36 = 1/6

300

What time complexity does Big-O notation describe?

Worst-case scenario

300

What is GDP and what does it measure?

Gross Domestic Product, the total value of all goods and services produced within a country

300

What is the Central Limit Theorem?

For a sufficiently large sample size, the distribution of the sample mean (or sum) will approximate a normal distribution

300

What field does Armaan do research in?

Bioengineering & Machine Learning

400

If 100 students each shake hands with everyone else exactly once, how many handshakes occur?

(100(99))/2 = 4950

400

What is the time complexity of accessing data in an array?

O(1)

400

When inflation is high, what do central banks often do to interest rates?

Raise them to slow spending and borrowing

400

What is the integral of 3x^2 dx

x^3 + C

400

What field does Zoe do research in?

Nueroscience

500

Three people check into a hotel room that costs $30. They each contributed $10. Later, the hotel manager realizes that the room rate was only $25, so he gives $5 to the bellboy to return to the guests. The bellboy, feeling greedy, keeps $2 for himself and gives $1 back to each of the three guests. Now, each guest has paid $9 (totaling $27), and the bellboy has $2. What happened to the last dollar?

There is no missing dollar.

500

What is the worst case time complexity of accessing a item in a singly linked list?

O(n)

500

What is stagflation?

A situation with both high inflation and high unemployment

500

Two vectors are orthogonal if this condition holds.

Their dot product equals 0

500

How many different languages does Sally know?

4

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