20 Challenging Job Interview Puzzles which every

analyst should solve atleast once

www.analyticsvidhya.com/blog/2016/07/20-challenging-job-interview-puzzles-which-every-analyst-solve-atleast/

Introduction
In current scenario, getting your first break into analytics can be difficult. Around 30% of
analytics companies (specially the top ones) evaluate candidates on their prowess at
solving puzzles. It implies that you are logical, creative and good with numbers.

The ability to bring unique perspective into solving business problems can provide you a
huge advantage over other candidates. Such abilities can only be develop with regular
practice and consistent efforts.

For me, solving puzzles is like mental exercise. I do it everyday and have fairly improved
over period of time. To help you achieve this skill, I am sharing some of the trickiest &
head scratching questions Ive come across in my journey. These questions have been
asked at companies like Goldman Sachs, Amazon, Google, JP Morgan etc.

P.S I want you to try solving them before checking the solution. Do share your logic &
solutions in the comments. Id love to see how uniquely can someone think!

20 Job Interview Puzzles

#1 Bag of Coins

You have 10 bags full of coins. In each bag are

infinite coins. But one bag is full of forgeries, and
you cant remember which one. But you do know
that a genuine coins weigh 1 gram, but forgeries
weigh 1.1 grams. You have to identify that bag
in minimum readings. You are provided with a
digital weighing machine.

Answer: 1 reading.

Take 1 coin from the first bag, 2 coins from the

second bag, 3 coins from the third bag and so on. Eventually, well get 55 (1+2+3
+9+10) coins. Now, weigh all the 55 coins together. Depending on the resulting weighing
machine reading, you can find which bag has the forged coins such that if the reading
ends with 0.4 then it is the 4th bag, if it ends with 0.7 then it is the 7th bag and so on.

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#2 Prisoners and hats

There are 100 prisoners all sentenced to death.

One night before the execution, the warden
gives them a chance to live if they all work on a
strategy together. The execution scenario is as
follows

On the day of execution, all the prisoners will be

made to stand in a straight line such that one
prisoner stands just behind another and so on.
All prisoners will be wearing a hat either of Blue
colour or Red. The prisoners dont know what colour of hat they are wearing. The
prisoner who is standing at the last can see all the prisoners in front of him (and what
colour of hat they are wearing). A prisoner can see all the hats in front of him. The
prisoner who is standing in the front of the line cannot see anything.

The executioner will ask each prisoner what colour of hat they are wearing one by one,
starting from the last in the line. The prisoner can only speak Red or Blue. He cannot
say anything else. If he gets it right, he lives otherwise he is shot instantly. All the
prisoners standing in front of him can hear the answers and gunshots.

Assuming that the prisoners are intelligent and would stick to the plan, what strategy
would the prisoners make over the night to minimize the number of deaths?

Answer:

The strategy is that the last person will say red if the number of red hats in front of him
are odd and blue if the number of red hats in front of him are even. Now, the 99th guy
will see the if the red hats in front of him are odd or even. If it is odd then obviously the
hat above him is blue, else it is red. From now on, its pretty intuitive.

#3 Blind games

You are in a dark room where a table is

kept. There are 50 coins placed on the
table, out of which 10 coins are showing
tails and 40 coins are showing heads. The
task is to divide this set of 50 coins into 2
groups (not necessarily same size) such
that both groups have same number of
coins showing the tails.

Answer:

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Divide the group into two groups of 40 coins and 10 coins. Flip all coins of the group with
10 coins.

#4 Sand timers

You have two sand timers, which can show 4 minutes and
7 minutes respectively. Use both the sand timers(at a time
or one after other or any other combination) and measure a
time of 9 minutes.

Answer:

1. Start the 7 minute sand timer and the 4 minute sand

timer.
2. Once the 4 minute sand timer ends turn it upside
down instantly.
3. Once the 7 minute sand timer ends turn it upside down instantly.
4. After the 4 minute sand timer ends turn the 7 minute sand timer upside down(it has
now minute of sand in it)

So effectively 8 + 1 = 9.

#5 Chaos in the bus

There is a bus with 100 labeled seats (labeled

from 1 to 100). There are 100 persons standing
in a queue. Persons are also labelled from 1 to
100.

People board on the bus in sequence from 1 to

n. The rule is, if person i boards the bus, he
checks if seat i is empty. If it is empty, he sits
there, else he randomly picks an empty seat
and sit there. Given that 1st person picks seat
randomly, find the probability that 100th person
sits on his place i.e. 100th seat.

Answer:

The final answer is the probability that the last person ends in up in his proper seat is
exactly 1/2

The reasoning goes as follows:

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First, observe that the fate of the last person is determined the moment either the first or
the last seat is selected! This is because the last person will either get the first seat or the
last seat. Any other seat will necessarily be taken by the time the last guy gets to
choose.

Since at each choice step, the first or last is equally probable to be taken, the last person
will get either the first or last with equal probability: 1/2.

#6 Mad men in a circle

N persons are standing in a circle.

They are labelled from 1 to N in
clockwise order. Every one of them is
holding a gun and can shoot a person
on his left. Starting from person 1,
they starts shooting in order e.g for
N=100, person 1 shoots person
2, then person 3 shoots person
4, then person 5 shoots person
6..then person 99 shoots person
100, then person 1 shoots person 3, then person 5 shoots person 7and it continues
till all are dead except one. Whats the index of that last person ?

Answer:

Write 100 in binary, which is 1100100 and take the complement which is 11011 and it is
27. Subtract the complement from the original number. So 100 27 = 73.

Try it out for 50 people. 50 = 110010 in binary.

Complement is 1101 = 13. Therefore, 50 13 = 37.

For the number in form 2^n, it will be the first person. Lets take an example:

64 = 1000000

Complement = 111111 = 63.

64-63 = 1.

You can apply this for any n.

#7 Lazy people need to be smart

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Four glasses are placed on the corners of a
square Lazy Susan (a square plate which
can rotate about its center). Some of the
glasses are upright (up) and some upside-
down (down).

A blindfolded person is seated next to the

Lazy Susan and is required to re-arrange
the glasses so that they are all up or all
down, either arrangement being acceptable
(which will be signalled by say ringing of a bell).

The glasses may be rearranged in turns with subject to the following rules: Any two
glasses may be inspected in one turn and after feeling their orientation the person may
reverse the orientation of either, neither or both glasses. After each turn the Lazy Susan
is rotated through a random angle.

The puzzle is to devise an algorithm which allows the blindfolded person to ensure that all
glasses have the same orientation (either up or down) in a finite number of turns. (The
algorithm must be deterministic, i.e. non-probabilistic )

Answer:

This algorithm guarantees that the bell will ring in at most five turns:

1. On the first turn, choose a diagonally opposite pair of glasses and turn both glasses
up.
2. On the second turn, choose two adjacent glasses at least one will be up as a result
of the previous step. If the other is down, turn it up as well. If the bell does not ring,
then there are now three glasses up and one down.
3. On the third turn, choose a diagonally opposite pair of glasses. If one is down, turn
it up and the bell will ring. If both are up, turn one down. There are now two glasses
down, and they must be adjacent.
4. On the fourth turn, choose two adjacent glasses and reverse both. If both were in
the same orientation then the bell will ring. Otherwise there are now two glasses
down and they must be diagonally opposite.
5. On the fifth turn, choose a diagonally opposite pair of glasses and reverse both.
The bell will ring.

#8 These kids deserve medals

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There are 10 incredibly smart boys at
school: A, B, C, D, E, F, G, H, I and Sam.
They run into class laughing at 8:58 am,
just two minutes before the playtime ends
and are stopped by a stern looking
teacher: Mr Rabbit.

Mr Rabbit sees that A, B, C and D have

mud on their faces. He, being a teacher
who thinks that his viewpoint is always
correct and acts only to enforce rules
rather than thinking about the world that should be, lashes out at the poor kids.

Silence!, he shouts. Nobody will talk. All of you who have mud on your faces, get out of
the class!. The kids look at each other. Each kid could see whether the other kids had
mud on their faces, but could not see his own face. Nobody goes out of the class.

I said, all of you who have mud on your faces, get out of the class!

Still nobody leaves. After trying 5 more times, the bell rings at 9 and Mr
Rabbit exasperatedly yells: I can clearly see that at least one of you kids has mud on his
face!.

The kids grin, knowing that their ordeal will be over soon. Sure enough, after a few more
times bawling of All of you who have mud on your faces, get out of the class!, A, B, C
and D walk out of the class.

Explain how A, B, C and D knew that they had mud on their faces. What made the kids
grin? Everybody knew that there was at least one kid with mud on his face. Support with a
logical statement that a kid did not know before Mr Rabbits exasperated yell at 9, but that
the kid knew right after it.

Answer:

After Mr Rabbits first shout, they understood that at least one boy has mud on his face.
So, if it was exactly one boy, then the boy would know that he had mud on his face and
go out after one shouting.

Since nobody went out after one shouting, they understood that at least two boys have
mud on their faces. If it were exactly two boys, those boys would know (they would see
only one others muddy face and theyd understand their face is muddy too) and go out
after the next shouting.

Since nobody went out after the second shouting, it means there are atleast three muddy
faces And so on, after the fourth shouting, A, B, C and D would go out of the class.

This explanation does leave some questions open. Everybody knew at least three others
had mud on their faces, why did they have to wait for Mr. Rabbits shout at the first place?
Why did they have to go through the all four shoutings after that as well?
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In multi-agent reasoning, an important concept arises of common knowledge. Everybody
knows that there are at least three muddy faces but they cannot act together on that
information without knowing that everybody else knows that too. And that everybody
knows that everybody knows that and so on. This is what well be analyzing. It requires
some imagination, so be prepared.

A knows that B, C and D have mud on their faces. A does not know if B knows that three
people have mud on their faces. A knows that B knows that two people have mud on their
faces. But A cant expect people to act on that information because A does not know if B
knows that C knows that there are two people with mud on their faces. If you think this is
all uselessly complicated, consider this:

A can imagine a world in which he does not have mud on his face. (Call this world A) In
As world, A can imagine B having a world where both A and B do not have mud on their
faces. (Call this world AB)

A can imagine a world where B imagines that C imagines that D imagines that nobody
has mud on their faces. (Call this world ABCD). So when Mr Rabbit shouted initially, it
could have been that nobody was going out because a world ABCD was possible in
which nobody should be going out anyway.

So heres a statement that changes after Mr. Rabbits yell. World ABCD is not possible
i.e. A cannot imagine a world where B imagines that C imagines that D imagines that
nobody has mud on their faces. So now in world ABC, D knows he has mud on his face.
And in world ABD, C knows he has mud on his face and so on.

#9 More prisoners and more hats

There are 7 prisoners sitting in a circle.

The warden has caps of 7 different colours
(an infinite supply of each colour). The
warden places a cap on each prisoners
head he can chose to place any cap on
any others head. Each prisoner can see all
caps but her/his own. The warden orders
everybody to shout out the colour of their
respective caps simultaneously. If any one
is able to guess her/his colour correctly, he
sets them free. Otherwise, he send them in a dungeon to rot and die. Is it possible to
devise a scheme to guarantee that nobody dies?

Answer:

Assign to each of the 7 colours a unique number from 0-6. Henceforth, we will only be
doing modular arithmetic (modulo 7).

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Assign to each of the 7 prisoners a unique number from 0-6. If the number assigned to
prisoner P is N, then P always guesses that the sum of the colours assigned to all
prisoners is M (modulo 7). Thus, he calculates his own colour under this assumption ( =
(M - sum(colours of the 6 prisoners he can see))%7 ).

There will always be a prisoner who guesses the correct sum (as the sum lies in 0-6), and
this prisoner therefore correctly guesses his own colour.

If there is a solution, then exactly one prisoner is correct (no more). This is because there
are 7^7 scenarios.

Each prisoners response is a function of the colours of the other 6, so if you fix their
colours and vary his colour, you can see that he will be correct in exactly one-seventh of
the cases (=7^6). The sum (across all scenarios) of the number of prisoners who are
correct is 7*(7^6)=7^7.

If each scenario is to have at least one person right, this implies that each scenario
cannot have more than one person who is right.

Being right about ones colour is equivalent to being right about the sum of colours of all
prisoners (modulo 7). (The colours of the other 6 are known.) So guessing ones colour is
the same as guessing the sum. How do we make sure that at least one person guesses
the correct sum? By making sure that everybody guesses a different sum.

#10 All men must die

One day, an alien comes to Earth. Every day, each alien

does one of four things, each with equal probability to:

(i) Kill himself

(ii) Do nothing
(iii) Split himself into two aliens (while killing himself)
(iv) split himself into three aliens (while killing himself)

What is the probability that the alien species eventually dies

out entirely?

Answer:

The answer is 2 1.

Suppose that the probability of aliens eventually dying out is x.

Then for n aliens, the probability of eventually dying out is xn because we consider
every alien as a separate colony. Now, if we compare aliens before and after the first day,
we get:

x = (1 /4) * 1 + (1 /4) * x + (1 /4) * x + (1 /4) * x

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x + x 3x + 1 = 0

(x 1)(x 2 + 2x 1) = 0

We get, x = 1, 1 2 , or 1 + 2

We claim that x cannot be 1, which would mean that all aliens eventually die out. The
number of aliens in the colony is, on average, multiplied by 0+1+2+3 4 = 1.5 every
minute, which means in general the aliens do not die out. (A more rigorous line of
reasoning is included below.) Because x is not negative, the only valid solution is x = 2
1.

To show that x cannot be 1, we show that it is at most 21.

Let x n be the probability that a colony of one bacteria will die out after at most n minutes.
Then, we get the relation:

xn + 1 = 1/4 (1 + x n + x n + xn)

We claim that xn 2 1 for all n, which we will prove using induction.

It is clear that x1 = 1 /4 2 1. Now, assume xk 2 1 for some k. We have:

xk+1 1/4 (1 + x k + x k + x k )

1/4 ( 1 + ( 2 1) + ( 2 1) + ( 2 1) )

= 2 1

which completes the proof that xn 2 1 for all n. Now, we note that as n becomes
large, xn approaches x. Using formal notation, this is:

x = lim (n ) xn 2 1 , so x cannot be 1.

#11 Lumos

A photon starts moving in random direction from the

center of square of size 3. Lets say it first colloids
to the glass wall AB. What is the expected distance
traveled by photon before hitting the wall AB again?

Answer:

Above is a pictorial representation of the photon.

We can calculate its distance as shown below:

d1 = x cosec ()

d2 = (3 - x) cosec ()

d3 = (3 - y) cosec ()

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d4 = y cosec ()

Total distance = d1+ d2 + d3 + d4

= 6 cosec ()

We know, varies between /4 and

3/4

Therefore, E(distance) = 6 E (cosec

)
= 6 x (2 /) cosec()d
(limits /4 to 3/4)
= 12/ ln (2 + 1/2 + 1)

#12 4 points in a sphere

Consider a unit sphere. 4 points are randomly chosen on it,

what is the probability that the centre (of sphere) lies within the
tetrahedron (/ polygon) formed by those 4 points?

Answer:

Let A, B and C be random points on the sphere with Aa, Bb

and Cc being diameters.

The spherical (minor) triangle abc is common to the

hemispheres abc, bca and cab (where the notation abc represents the hemisphere cut off
by the great circle through a and b and containing the point c, etc), therefore the
probability that a further random point, D, lies on this triangle is:

1/2 x 1/2 x 1/2 = 1/8

(For centre to lie in the tetrahedron D should lie in the triangle i.e the opposite
hemisphere of ABC)

#13 Misogynist country

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In a country in which people only want boys, every
family continues to have children until they have a
boy. If they have a girl, they have another child. If
they have a boy, they stop. What is the proportion
of boys to girls in the country?

Answer:

Following is the required calculation:

Expected Number of boys for 1 family = 1*

(Probability of 1 boy) + 1*(Probability of 1 girl and a boy) + 1*
(Probability of 2 girls and a boy) +

For C couples = 1*(C*1/2) + 1*(C*1/2*1/2) + 1*(C*1/2*1/2*1/2) +

Expected Number of boys = C/2 + C/4 + C/8 + C/16 +

Expected Number of boys = C

Expected Number of girls for 1 family = 0*(Probability of 0 girls) + 1*

(Probability of 1 girl and a boy) + 2*(Probability of 2 girls and a boy) +

For C couples = 0*(C*1/2) + 1*(C*1/2*1/2) + 2*(C*1/2*1/2*1/2) +

Expected Number of girls = 0 + C/4 + 2*C/8 + 3*C/16 +

Expected Number of girls = C

Therefore, the proportion is C/C = 1:1

#14 The Red wedding

A bad king has a cellar of 1000 bottles

of delightful and very expensive wine. A
neighbour queen plots to kill the bad
king and sends a servant to poison the
wine.

Fortunately (or say unfortunately) the

bad kings guards catch the servant
after he could poison only one bottle.
Alas, the guards dont know which
bottle, but know that the poison is so strong that even if diluted 100,000 times it would still
kill the king.

Furthermore, it takes one month to have an effect. The bad king decides he will get some
of the prisoners in his vast dungeons to drink the wine. Being a clever bad king, he knows
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that he needs to murder no more than 10 prisoners believing he can fob off such a low
death rate and will still be able to drink the rest of the wine (999 bottles) at his wedding
party in 5 weeks time.

Explain what is in mind of the king, how will he be able to do so ? (he has only 10
prisoners in his prisons)

Answer:

The number the bottles are 1 to 1000. Now, write the number in binary format. We can
write it as:

bottle 1 = 0000000001 (10 digit binary)

bottle 2 = 0000000010

bottle 500 = 0111110100

bottle 1000 = 1111101000

Now, take 10 prisoners and number them 1 to 10. Let prisoner 1 take a sip from every
bottle that has a 1 in its least significant bit. And, this process will continue for every
prisoner until the last prisoner is reached. For example:

Prisoner = 10 9 8 7 6 5 4 3 2 1

Bottle 924 = 1 1 1 0 0 1 1 1 0 0

For instance, bottle no. 924 would be sipped by 10,9,8,5,4 and 3. That way if bottle no.
924 was the poisoned one, only those prisoners would die.

After four weeks, line the prisoners up in their bit order and read each living prisoner as a
0 bit and each dead prisoner as a 1 bit. The number that you get is the bottle of wine that
was poisoned. We know, 1000 is less than 1024 (2^10). Therefore, if there were 1024 or
more bottles of wine it would take more than 10 prisoners.

#15 Life and luck

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You and your friend are caught by
gangsters and made to play a game to
determine if you should live or die. The
game is simple.

There is a deck of cards and you both have

to choose a card. You can look at each
others cards but not at the card you have
chosen. You both will survive if both are
correct in guessing the card they have
chosen. Otherwise both die.

What is the probability of you surviving if you and your friend play the game optimally?

Answer:

We know, A and B have picked a card at random from a deck. A can see Bs card and
vice versa. So, A knows (s)he has not picked Bs card, but apart from that, (s)he knows
that the card is equally probable to be any of the other 51 cards. So, if A guesses Bs
card, they lose. But if A guesses any other card, theres a 1/51 chance that A is right. This
also implies that total probability of success <= 1/51.

As aim now is to tell any card apart from Bs card that gives B the most information about
Bs own card. So they can plan beforehand as follows:

Consider the sequence of cards Clubs 1-13, Diamonds 1-13, Hearts 1-13, Spades 1-13.
A will tell the card after Bs card in this sequence. (If A says 4 of Hearts, it means B has 3
of Hearts. If A says Ace of Clubs, it means B has King of Spades)

With As guess, which is always different from Bs card, B gets to know exactly which card
(s)he has and can always guess correctly. So the probability of success is 1/51, which is
the maximum achievable.

#16 Weighing balls

You have 12 balls that all weigh the same except

one, which is either slightly lighter or slightly heavier.
The only tool you have is a balance scale that can
only tell you which side is heavier. Using only three
weightings, how can you deduce, without a shadow
of a doubt, which is the odd one out, and if it is
heavier or lighter than the others?

Answer:

First we weigh {1,2,3,4} on the left and {5,6,7,8} on

the right. There are three scenarios which can arise from this:
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If they balance, then we know 9, 10, 11 or 12 is fake. Weigh {8, 9} and {10, 11} (Note: 8 is
surely not fake). If they balance, we know 12 is the fake one. Just weigh it with any other
ball and figure out if it is lighter or heavier.

If {8, 9} is heavier, then either 9 is heavy or 10 is light or 11 is light. Weigh {10} and {11}. If
they balance, 9 is fake (heavier). If they dont balance then whichever one is lighter is fake
(lighter).

If {8, 9} is lighter, then either 9 is light or 10 is heavy or 11 is heavy. Weigh {10} and {11}.
If they balance, 9 is fake (lighter). If they dont balance then whichever one is heavier is
fake (heavier).

If {1,2,3,4} is heavier, we know either one of {1,2,3,4} heavier or one of {5,6,7,8} is lighter
but it is guarantees that {9,10,11,12} are not fake. This is where it gets really tricky, watch
carefully. Weigh {1,2,5} and {3,6,9} (Note: 9 is surely not fake).

If they balance, then either 4 is heavy or 7 is light or 8 is light. Following the last step from
the previous case, we weigh {7} and {8}. If they balance, 4 is fake(heavier). If they dont
balance then whichever one is lighter is fake (lighter).

If {1,2,5} is heavier, then either 1 is heavy or 2 is heavy or 6 is light. Weigh {1} and {2}. If
they balance, 6 is fake (lighter). If they dont balance then whichever one is heavier is fake
(heavier).

If {3,6,9} is heavier, then either 3 is heavy or 5 is light. Weigh {5} and {9}. They wont
balance. If {5} is lighter, 5 is fake (lighter). If they balance, 3 is fake (heavier).

If {5,6,7,8} is heavier, it is the same situation as if {1,2,3,4} was heavier. Just perform the
same steps using 5,6,7 and 8. Unless maybe you are too lazy to try and reprocess the
steps, then you continue reading the solution. Weigh {5,6,1} and {7,2,9} (Note: 9 is surely
not fake).

If they balance, then either 8 is heavy or 3 is light or 4 is light. Following the last step from
the previous case, we weigh {3} and {4}. If they balance, 8 is fake(heavier). If they dont
balance then whichever one is lighter is fake (lighter).

If {5,6,1} is heavier, then either 5 is heavy or 6 is heavy or 2 is light. Weigh {5} and {6}. If
they balance, 2 is fake (lighter). If they dont balance then whichever one is heavier is fake
(heavier).

If {7,2,9} is heavier, then either 7 is heavy or 1 is light. Weigh {1} and {9}. If they balance,
7 is fake (heavier). If they dont balance then 1 is fake (lighter).

#17 Bias and unbias

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Robin and Williams are playing a game. An unbiased
coin is tossed repeatedly. Robin wins as soon as the
sequence of tosses HHT appears. Williams wins as
soon as the sequence of tosses HTH appears. The
game ends when one of them wins. What are the
probabilities of winning for each player?

Answer: (Robin) HHT 2/3 (Williams) HTH 1/3

Let the probability of Robin winning be p. The

probability of Williams winning is (1-p). If the first toss
is tails, it is as good as the game has not started, hence the probability of Robin winning
is p after the first tail.

p = (1/2)*p + .

Let the first toss be heads. If the second toss is heads, then Robin definitely wins. Since
HH has occurred, and at some point, tails will occur, so HHT will occur. Hence Robin
wins with probability 1 for HH.

p = (1/2 )*p + (1/2)*((1/2)*1 + .....)

Let the second toss be tails. If the third toss is heads, Robin loses as HTH occurs. If the
third toss is tails (HTT) since two tails have occurred in a row, now it is as good as the
game has started from the beginning, so the chances of Robin winning are back to p.

T HH HTH HTT

p = (1/2)*p + 1/2 ((1/2)*1 + 1/2 ((1/2)*0 + (1/2) * p))

p = (1/2)*p + (1/4)*1 + (1/8)*0 + (1/8)*p

Finally, solving this equation gives us p = 2/3.

#18 Chameleons go on a date

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On an island live 13 purple, 15 yellow and
17 maroon chameleons. When two
chameleons of different colors meet, they
both change into the third color. Is there a
sequence of pairwise meetings after which
all chameleons have the same color?

Answer:

Let <p, y, m> denote a population of p

purple, y yellow and m maroon chameleons.
Can population <13, 15, 17> be transformed into <45, 0, 0> or <0, 45, 0> or <0, 0, 45>
through a series of pairwise meetings?

We can define function:

X(p, y, m) = (0p + 1y + 2m) mod 3

An interesting property of X is that its value does not change after any pairwise meeting
because

X(p, y, m) = X(p-1, y-1, m+2) = X(p-1, y+2, m-1) = X(p+2, y-1, m-1)

Now X(13, 15, 17) equals 1. However,

X(45, 0, 0) = X(0, 45, 0) = X(0, 0, 45) = 0**

This means that there is no sequence of pairwise meetings after which all chameleons
will have identical colour.

#19 The Einstein puzzle

Answer the question using the given

information and hints.

1. In a street there are five houses, painted

five different colors.
2. In each house lives a person of different
nationality
3. These five homeowners each drink a
different kind of beverage, smoke
different brand of cigar and keep a
different pet.

The Question: Who owns the fish ?

Hints:

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 1. The British man lives in a red house.
2. The Swedish man keeps dogs as pets.
3. The Danish man drinks tea.
4. The Green house is next to, and on the left of the White house.
5. The owner of the Green house drinks coffee.
6. The person who smokes Pall Mall rears birds.
7. The owner of the Yellow house smokes Dunhill.
8. The man living in the center house drinks milk.
9. The Norwegian lives in the first house.
10. The man who smokes Blends lives next to the one who keeps cats.
11. The man who keeps horses lives next to the man who smokes Dunhill.
12. The man who smokes Blue Master drinks beer.
13. The German smokes Prince.
14. The Norwegian lives next to the blue house.
15. The Blends smoker lives next to the one who drinks water.

FYI This question is famously known as Einstein Puzzle.

#20 Circles whirl my mind

Consider natural numbers form 1 to 21 that is 1,2,3,4.21. Find number of distinct
circular permutation of these numbers such that any number must have different
neighbours.

Answer Still thinking.! Post solution if you get.

End Notes
I hope these questions would have dared you enough to get your brain rolling. I
understand these question might appear as challenging to a lot of you, but believe me,
they arent difficult. If you find any trouble in understanding any solution or question, feel
free to drop me a message below.

Ive obtained the solution from various sources. Also, Ive answered some on my own. Try
to understand these questions well. Once you do it, youd find it easier to solve similar
questions during interviews.

Did you like solving these puzzles? Do let me know your experience, suggestions &
solutions in the comments below. I am excited to see if you can think any different!

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