Fundaes 101

In today’s issue of InvestmentEtc, we have carefully refined resources from the sea of OP fundae to get you going in your interns and placements, especially if you are targeting Analyst or Quant profiles.

Section 1: Practice Questions

In this section, you can find three practice questions with answers and explanations asked by companies that hired analysts in past years.

1. Seats for Mathematics, Physics, and Biology in a school are in the ratio 5: 7: 8. There is a proposal to increase these seats by 40%, 50%and 75% respectively. What will be the ratio of increased seats?[JPMC, Easy]

Correct Ans : 2 : 3 : 4
Detailed solution : 
The seats for M:P:B = 5: 7 : 8
So let the no. of seats in M, P , B  be 5x, 7x and 8x respectively
Since the increase % are 40,50 and 75, the new no, of seats will be:
5x + 0.4(5x) = 7x
7x + 0.5(7x) = 10.5x
8x + 0.75(8x) = 14x
The new ratio would be – 7 : 10.5 : 14 
⇒ 2 : 3 : 4

2. A and B can complete a piece of work in 80 days and 120 days respectively. They started working together but A left after 20 days. After another 12 days C joined B and they completed the work in 28 more days. In how many days can C alone complete the work? 
[JPMC, intermediate] 

Correct answer : 112 days
Detailed solution:
A did the work for 20 days, B did the work for (20 + 12 +28) = 60 days.
C did the work for 28 days
If C alone can complete the work in x days, 
Fraction of work done by A + Fraction of work done by B + Fraction of work done by C = 1
20/80 + 60/120 + 28/x = 1
 x = 4*28 = 112

3. A postman brought N letters to a house with two letter boxes. Since the two boxes were empty, he puts 1 mail in each of the two mailboxes. Then he chooses one of the boxes with probability proportional to number of letters present in that box, and puts the 3rd letter in it. He does this for all subsequent letters. What is the expected number of letters in the box with lower letters?
(GS, Hard)

Answer: https://brainstellar.com/puzzles/1003

4. Mahendra Rajapaksa bought a total of 15 Aircraft, BMW, and Audi for Rs.68 million. He bought more BMWs than Audi. The cost of each Aircraft was Rs.8 million, each BMW was Rs.3 million and each Audi was Rs. 4 million. How many Aircraft did he buy? [Hard]

Correct Ans : 4
Detailed solution : 
Let the number of Aircraft, BMW and Audi bought by Mahendra Rajapaksa be x, y and z respectively
According to question:
 x + y + z = 15 …..(i)
8x + 3y + 4z = 68 ….. (ii)
From (ii) – (i) ×4, we get
4x – y = 8 ……. (iii)
From (iii),
When y = 0 then x = 2 
So, z = (15 – 2 – 0) = 13 (from (i))

The other solutions are obtained by adding 1 repeatedly to x
When x = 3, y = 4 (from (iii)) 
So, z = (15 – 3 – 4) = 8
When x = 4, y = 8 (from (iii))
 So, z = (15 – 4 – 8) = 3
When x = 5, y = 12
So, z = (15 – 5 – 12) = – 2 (which is not possible)

Since he bought at least one of each thing and more BMW than Audi,
 So, the third column of the above table is fulfilling the required condition.
Thus, he bought 4 Aircrafts, 8 BMWs and 3 Audis.

Hence number of Aircraft = 4

Section 2: Current Affairs

During the interviews and Group Discussions, current affairs is something that comes to help. Especially when asked about the world economy or about our nation’s financial matters, the only thing that can be thought of is the current happenings.  Current Affairs, as we all know, refer to the events and problems taking place around the world at the present time which are of great importance. 

Some of us would have the habit of reading newspapers at home but in Insti, not a lot actually manage to do that. So here’s a splendid alternative to stay updated about the hard news-

Finshots: A 3 min daily newsletter focused on simplifying financial, commercial, and economic concerns in a crispy-insightful way. Subscription is free of any cost and there exists a mobile app as well. 

Personally, Finshots helped me to crack the Nomura GD in the Internship Season 2022-23. I could pitch in a lot of points relevant to my topic and lead through because I had been keeping track of these small things happening in the world.

Section 3: Today’s Resource Pick

Let’s learn some tricks to approach these questions with the help of this Video
 
Watched it so soon? Here’s somewhere you can go and apply all the hacks learnt –
Heard on The Street: Quantitative Questions from Wall Street Job Interviews – Timothy Falcon Crack

The book contains five main sections – Quantitative/Logical Questions, Derivatives Questions, Financial Economics Questions, Statistics Questions and Non-Quantitative Questions. Every single one of these five topics is crucial for the aspiring quant. The questions are not simple by any means; some of the statistics and quantitative problems are very difficult.

That’s all from us today. Stay tuned for the next issue!