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These puzzles would make horrible college admissions tests. They hardly qualify as interview questions. This typpe of problem is nearly impossible for folks th

These puzzles would make horrible college admissions tests. They hardly qualify as interview questions. This typpe of problem is nearly impossible for folks that have never heard a similar test and nearly trivial for someone who has heard ~3 like it.

aardvark179 5y ago
They were used for interviews for maths and CS, so I think it’s quite likely the candidates would have seen similar puzzles before, but I think that misses the point. This sort of puzzle is there so that the students can either present and an answer and the interviewer can start to dig into it with more questions, or so that the candidate doesn’t come up with an answer immediately and the interviewer can ask other questions that will help them reason things out. The object is generally to explore how a candidate thinks. If it turns out they memorised logic puzzles and can’t explain them then they will not get through the interview.
jonsen 5y ago
Apparently it's neither intended nor used as an "impossible/trivial" problem: The interviews were an in-depth back-and-forth discussion, as much as could be had in about 25 minutes. These interviews, of course, are just one component among many in regard to the difficult admissions decision, a chance for the candidate to show us how they think through a problem, how well they can explain their ideas, how well they take hints and suggestions. In every interview, we had paused at a certain stage, when the candidate had a fully formed argument for one of the variations, and asked them to undertake an integrative exercise, summarizing as clearly as they could the entire problem and solution and how they expected it to play out. Since these were interviews for joint philosophy degrees, in my view this step was a key part of the interview, measuring the ability of the candidate to integrate what they had learned from the discussion and to present a complete, coherent argument.
rndm_access 5y ago
This is general problem with modern public founded education system - it prizes memorization of repetitive schemes - as it's easy to check on the mass scale who is able to memorize these schemes. It's several magnitudes harder to check who really is a material for a scientist among same large population of candidates. I was educated in top university in my Central European country and to this day cannot shake off memories of people who passed calculus exams by memorizing solutions of integrals instead of understanding how to solve them. It was a general scheme - mediocre students interested only in "getting paper" aka diploma were passing exams mostly flawless some of them even get scholarships[sic(k)!] while people interested in actually understanding material and doing projects by their own (most students were making projects in groups and changing only minor details and teachers were pretending they do not see that) were struggling within that system. As the system has memorization without understanding and cheating as a fundamental of it's construction and people who resist following that pathological scheme were simply penalized. Attempts to rationalize with academic teachers in many cases resulted in absurd remarks of "everyone have equal requirements for passing classes". Puke inducing every time I think about that.
goldcd 5y ago
They're a little bit pretentious, I'd agree - but handy to see how somebody thinks. (I'd never heard of "2 generals" before - so had a fun "Oh that", "Noo, then that doesn't", "Maybe if I ask on reply?".. nope..) My guess is that 'impossible problems' either pick up on people who know "Oh that's the 2 generals problem" (gold star) or can quickly cycle through ideas and then pick up on the shortcomings as they mentally explore. Maybe A+ if they can explain why it's impossible, A if they say it is, D- if come up with something that doesn't work.
quickthrower2 5y ago
Especially so in a pressured time-limited scenario. Its almost like asking them to play chess. If you play chess and studied then opening moves you are at a massive advantage. So it becomes a test of preparedness and ruthlessness. The winner is the one who finds out what the questions are and studies them. Or studies enough IQ stuff to get through. Its leetcode basically. Not sure what the solution is. I think additional on topic exams you study for and have past papers would be better. I didnt apply for oxbridge because of this extra pressure. My worry was id screw up the bread and butter of the a levels with the extra study needed for this kind of test. Being an interview scenario too means you need to act. I was shy but very passionate about maths. A London college gave me feedback I wasn’t passionate about maths and should consider another course. Based in half an hour with me.
deleted 5y ago
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aardvark179 5y ago

They were used for interviews for maths and CS, so I think it’s quite likely the candidates would have seen similar puzzles before, but I think that misses the point. This sort of puzzle is there so that the students can either present and an answer and the interviewer can start to dig into it with more questions, or so that the candidate doesn’t come up with an answer immediately and the interviewer can ask other questions that will help them reason things out. The object is generally to explore how a candidate thinks. If it turns out they memorised logic puzzles and can’t explain them then they will not get through the interview.

jonsen 5y ago

Apparently it's neither intended nor used as an "impossible/trivial" problem: The interviews were an in-depth back-and-forth discussion, as much as could be had in about 25 minutes. These interviews, of course, are just one component among many in regard to the difficult admissions decision, a chance for the candidate to show us how they think through a problem, how well they can explain their ideas, how well they take hints and suggestions. In every interview, we had paused at a certain stage, when the candidate had a fully formed argument for one of the variations, and asked them to undertake an integrative exercise, summarizing as clearly as they could the entire problem and solution and how they expected it to play out. Since these were interviews for joint philosophy degrees, in my view this step was a key part of the interview, measuring the ability of the candidate to integrate what they had learned from the discussion and to present a complete, coherent argument.

rndm_access 5y ago

This is general problem with modern public founded education system - it prizes memorization of repetitive schemes - as it's easy to check on the mass scale who is able to memorize these schemes. It's several magnitudes harder to check who really is a material for a scientist among same large population of candidates. I was educated in top university in my Central European country and to this day cannot shake off memories of people who passed calculus exams by memorizing solutions of integrals instead of understanding how to solve them. It was a general scheme - mediocre students interested only in "getting paper" aka diploma were passing exams mostly flawless some of them even get scholarships[sic(k)!] while people interested in actually understanding material and doing projects by their own (most students were making projects in groups and changing only minor details and teachers were pretending they do not see that) were struggling within that system. As the system has memorization without understanding and cheating as a fundamental of it's construction and people who resist following that pathological scheme were simply penalized. Attempts to rationalize with academic teachers in many cases resulted in absurd remarks of "everyone have equal requirements for passing classes". Puke inducing every time I think about that.

goldcd 5y ago

They're a little bit pretentious, I'd agree - but handy to see how somebody thinks. (I'd never heard of "2 generals" before - so had a fun "Oh that", "Noo, then that doesn't", "Maybe if I ask on reply?".. nope..) My guess is that 'impossible problems' either pick up on people who know "Oh that's the 2 generals problem" (gold star) or can quickly cycle through ideas and then pick up on the shortcomings as they mentally explore. Maybe A+ if they can explain why it's impossible, A if they say it is, D- if come up with something that doesn't work.

quickthrower2 5y ago

Especially so in a pressured time-limited scenario. Its almost like asking them to play chess. If you play chess and studied then opening moves you are at a massive advantage. So it becomes a test of preparedness and ruthlessness. The winner is the one who finds out what the questions are and studies them. Or studies enough IQ stuff to get through. Its leetcode basically. Not sure what the solution is. I think additional on topic exams you study for and have past papers would be better. I didnt apply for oxbridge because of this extra pressure. My worry was id screw up the bread and butter of the a levels with the extra study needed for this kind of test. Being an interview scenario too means you need to act. I was shy but very passionate about maths. A London college gave me feedback I wasn’t passionate about maths and should consider another course. Based in half an hour with me.

deleted 5y ago

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