Technical Interview Prep (Software) Readiness Test

10 questions, balanced across the exam's topics. Answer each one, then submit for your practice readiness estimate and per-topic breakdown. This is a practice estimate — not a prediction or guarantee of your official exam result.

Question 1

What should you do after noticing an assumption was wrong mid-interview?

Silently keep the invalid solution State the correction and revise the approach. Restart the interview from the beginning Insist the original assumption was correct

Question 2

Why test duplicate values separately from distinct values?

Because duplicates are always invalid input Equality can change counting, ordering, and pointer behavior. Because sorting removes all duplicates automatically Because distinct values never need testing

Question 3

A loop visits each of n elements once. What is its time complexity?

Theta(1) Theta(n), assuming constant work per element. Theta(n squared) Theta(log n)

Question 4

What is auxiliary space complexity?

The memory freed by the garbage collector during execution All memory the program uses, including the input Extra working memory excluding input and usually output. Only the memory used by recursive calls

Question 5

Two independent nested loops each run n times. What is the complexity?

Theta(2n) Theta(n) Theta(n squared), assuming constant inner work. Theta(n log n)

Question 6

What does Big O express?

A bound that includes exact constant factors An asymptotic upper bound on growth. An exact count of operations for every input size The fastest possible runtime of the algorithm

Question 7

What should you clarify before choosing an algorithm?

Input limits, required output, edge cases, and allowed operations. Only the programming language the solution will be written in The exact variable names the implementation will use Which standard-library functions will be called first

Question 8

What is a minimal failing example?

A formal proof of correctness The largest input that still fails A test case that passes A reduced input that still reproduces the defect.

Question 9

Why are half-open intervals useful?

They exclude both endpoints, written (start, end) They always start at index zero They represent ranges as [start, end) with length end minus start. They include both endpoints, written [start, end]

Question 10

Why does reading all n input items impose a lower bound?

It imposes a Theta(n log n) lower bound Any required full inspection takes Omega(n) work. It imposes no lower bound at all It imposes an O(1) lower bound

Unanswered questions count as incorrect. Your answers are graded on the server; no answer key is sent to your browser.

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