Sample Test Paper
I am Suman Debnath, a student of CSE 2007 pass out batch of Academy Of Technology, West Bengal. There were 4 rounds of the entire test:
1) Aptitude Test.
2) Group Discussion.
3) Technical interview.
4) HR interview.
(However in our case there was a single round for technical & HR interview)
1) Aptitude Test:
I sat for the aptitude test for Satyam and was selected. I can not remember all the questions of the test, some of them were very lengthy & most puzzling. There were 15 questions with cut off marks 6 or 7. I read the first question and found that it was not an easy task to solve the problems one by one. So I scanned the entire question set and found that 6 of them were very easy. I solved them at first then tried others, but as there were � negative marks for each wrong answer, I solved only 7.
2) Group Discussion:
In the GD section there were 10 candidates in a single group. The interviewer was very friendly. He asked us to select our topic. 7 of us selected �Reservation (st/sc/obc)�; others selected �Banning of cold drinks�.
However he did not allowed us to discuss a controversial topic, then he selected �Our educational system needs to be changed or not�. He told us to take 1 minute to think what to say. Everyone was thinking there own views and writing on paper. But I was ready for all time, because I knew what to say to start a GD & how to pass the control to others & by doing so how to get some more extra time to think. So I started as follows:
�So friends (with a great confidence), we know we have a GD here and our topic is �our educational system needs to be changed or not�. I am introducing my self: I am Suman Debnath, a 4th year student of CSE and I am studying in Academy of Technology. So please you introduce yourself (I told it to my next candidate and waiting for their views)�..�
Thus I collected other views and after mixing + adding some extra, I represented my own view. I found that this trick was working fruitfully.
At last I took part for concluding. Everyone was saying that the system needs a change. I was active at the beginning, at the middle and at last of the GD. What I said was not a new one to everyone, but I tried to draw the interviewer�s attention by saying different statements in different situations.
Thus only 3 were selected in the GD, I was one of them.
3) & 4) Technical & HR interview:
There was a single interview for both technical and HR. That interviewer was also very friendly. I entered in the room after taking a long breath and told him �hello sir, I am Suman Debnath� after offering a handshake (this indicates the confidence of the candidate), he also introduced me. Then he started:
Interviewer: So Suman, tell about yourself.
Me: sir, I live with my parents. There are three members in my house. My father is a governmental employee, my mother is a housewife. I started my career in a Bengali medium school. I scored 80.625% in secondary & 64.5% in higher secondary exam. Now I am reading in Academy of Technology in computer science and engineering��..
Interviewer: you completed higher secondary in 2002 & started your engineering career in 2003, what about the one year gap?
Me: sir, after completing HS I was admitted in a B.Sc college to complete a hon. course in zoological science, then I sat for the joint entrance and got admission in my college.
Interviewer: what was your rank?
(I told him I can�t remember exactly but I guessed it)
Interviewer: ok, who is your father?
Me: my father is Sudhir Kumar Debnath; he is an employee of West Bengal State Electricity Board.
Interviewer: and your mother is a housewife, right? Fine. Suman, can you explain different parts of a computer?
Me: sir the major parts of a computer are input device, processing device and output device. Input devices are keyboard, mouse, microphone, lightpen etc, output devices are visual display unit (monitor), speaker etc. every computer should have at least one CPU that is the heart of entire system and for storage purpose there should be primary memory, secondary memory etc.
Interviewer: when we use a computer we have to use an operating system, do you know what an OS does and what are differences between an OS and a simple software?
Me: operating system is the base system on which other programs can be executed. It has many services like memory management, maintaining file systems, user accounts, controlling attached hardware etc.
The softwares which we use run on the OS platform.
Interviewer: ok let us come to C. Do you know what is the main difference between C, C++ & Java?
Me: yes sir, C is procedural (function) oriented programming language, means we have to code using functions but we cannot use the concept of object.
Java is a fully object oriented programming language. We cannot access the methods or variables without using object.
And C++ is in between them. We can use object oriented concept or without using that also we can carry on. So C++ is not fully object oriented language & not fully procedural oriented language.
(The answer was ok, but friends I am not sure that whether structure variables can be treated as objects or not)
Interviewer: what do you understand by method overriding & method overloading?
Me: (I started with method overloading) sir we know there is a term called function signature which includes 1) no of arguments, 2) arrangement of arguments, 3) data type of arguments & 4) name of function. Suppose there are two or more functions having same name but different signatures, now the right function will be called depending upon the signature.
(I gave an example & then he said �ok I got it�, I did not need to explain method overriding. I used a printf statement to explain overloading, he then asked���)
Interviewer: how can you express printf statement in C++ & in Java?
Me: sir we use �cout� & �system.out.println� in C++ & Java respectively instead of printf statement.
Interviewer: Do you know about multiple inheritance?
Me: (I explained it after drawing figures; I explained base classes, derived classes & their relationships)
Interviewer: can you give an example of that in your life?
(This question was asked just to check the common sense of the student)
Me: yes sir my parents and me.
(He smiled & was satisfied)
Interviewer: in java we declare �public static void main ()�, can you explain each terms?
Me: (I made it clear why we use public & void, but I forgot why static is used, so frankly I said �but I am sorry sir I can not remember the reason of using static keyword�)
Interviewer: ok ok it is fine. Do you know how we can pass command line argument in Java?
Me: yes we have to declare a string array in between the parenthesis of main method. (I gave an example)
Interviewer: ok now come to DBMS. What do you know about RDBMS, what does it mean?
Me: RDBMS stands for Relational Database Management System. It deals with concept of storing data into tables instead of files ��.
(I understood that my answer was not going in right direction, so I concluded as�)
Sir I think my answer is not to the point, I am sorry, I have forgotten it.
Interviewer: ok its fine. You know actually RDBMS concept is��..
(Then he started & took 2-3 minutes to explain it, he was so friendly but friends frankly saying I was not in the state of learning something, so I was just nodding my head & thinking whether I�ll get the job or not)
Me: sir, one thing I want to tell you that whatever I have learnt from my college, I always try to implement it. Because it is true that without implementation there no value of theory in the technological field.
(I tried to show a software �Phoenix� developed by me; he wanted to get some information like about the language in which it is written, what it does etc.)
Interviewer: you have learnt about data structure, do you know what is hashing?
Me: in division method we have to set a key value by which we have to divide the input value & depending on the result we have to store it in defined locations. If two same results occur then we have to maintain a linked list��..
Interviewer: ok Suman nice to meet you.
Me: nice to meet you sir.
(We ended the interview with a firm handshake)
Thus my interview was completed. I was confident that if anything was not going wrong, then I�ll be selected. The next day I was in my college attending a class, I got the good news that I am selected & total intake was 108 (for 2006-2007 batches).
At last I want to give some suggestions to my juniors & friends.
1) In aptitude test at first try to eyewash the entire question set, because there are some blocking questions at the beginning, just skip them & answer the easier one otherwise you may fall into the trap.
2) If negative marking is there, do not guess any answer. Maintain rough working, examiners may check it.
3) Always try to do some homework before sitting in a GD. In GD always keep a pen & paper to write what others are talking about. Try to analyze or criticize those. It is much trickier & it works nicely.
4) Be frank at the time of interview. If they ask any theoretical question you do not know, please do not try to establish new theory, simply surrender yourself --- it is ok. If any tough problem is given to you at least try to solve it.
5) If you pretend anything, they will understand it easily. They are smarter than you.
So I end here friends, next time we are going to meet in Satyam, till then good by.