IBM
Written Test
The written test consists of two sections each of 45 minutes duration
Section#1
This is the aptitude section consisting of 45 questions to be attempted in 45 minutes. As is in all the exams, this section is based on the MBA pattern of examination.
Section#2
his is the technical section. There is a separate paper for hardware and software. Candidates have to mention beforehand whether they want to write the software or the hardware paper.This section also carries 45 questions to be completed in 45 minutes.
Interview
There are two rounds of interviews, viz., the technical and and the HR round
Technical and Personal Round for Software Candidates
Mainly subjective questions in C, Operating Systems, DBMS, Data Structures are asked interspersed with some on the candidate's personal background.
.Typical questions in C and Data Structures
1. WAP to interchange 2 variables without using the third one
2. Explain quick sort and merge sort algorithms amn derive the time-constraint relation for these.
3. Explain binary searching, fibonacci search
4. General questions on binary trees, transversals
5. General questions on graphs and their representation.
Typical Questions on Operating Systems
1. Demand paging, page faults, replacement algos, thrashing, etc
2. Paged segmentation and segment paging
In this section, case studies are presented are presented before the candidate to percieve his reaction and his/her communication skills are tested. IBM expects teamwork and teamspirit from the candidates and their answers should reflect this attitude
Typical question is
You are a project manager of a big multinational project. There is a person X, assigned to you who has the best technical skills required for the project, even better than you. But he wishes to be the project manager ,which the management does not permit, due to which he threatens to quit. All others in the group are not as competent. Talk yourself out of this situation pretending that the interviewer is the disgruntled employee and explain the necessary action.
(1 vote)
There were 4 rounds… 1 .
There were 4 rounds…
1 . Written
2 . Essay round
3 . GD
4 . Tech + HR Interview
340 sat for the interview and 166 got selected. The cut off for every department was variable but for the ECE, CSE and IT ppl it was very high. There were 55 ques and 47 was the cut-off. Yes, believe me, tht’s the fact. 47 was the cutoff and for Non-IT depts. Like mechanical, EE, Meta, Chem.. the cut off ranged from 35 to 40. Let me brief you about the written test.
There were 4 sections…
1st Verbal Section: 10 questions
2 ques on filling appropriate words..like
[1] The money was shared ______ the two.
(a) Among (b) Between (c) a & b (d) None
[2] _______ preparing for the exams, she had also prepared a presentation.
(a) Beside (b) Besides (c) a & b (d) None
1 ques on a synonym based sentence
[3] The phone number was incorporated into the directory.
(a) Exclude (b) Include (c) Condemned (d) None
Then the next 2 were on articles, very easy ones.
Then there was a RC… on embedded systems. Basically, read the 1st para, answer the 1st ques… the ques were set according to the paras… very easy, try to do it in the end. Do the ones you are comfortable with.
2nd Aptitude Section: 25 questions
Believe me this was a good section. There were easy ques but you had to be patient and not excited. Try to keep your adrenaline flow under control….
Q on Venn Diagram…
There are 32 tables in a room. 9 tables have salt bottles on them. 1 table has salt and pepper only, 1 table has salt and sugar only and 1 table has pepper and sugar only.
3 tables have all of them. The difference between the tables containing pepper and sugar is 2. Find the following..
[1] No. of tables containing sugar. [Ans: 17]
[2] No. of tables containing sugar only. [Ans: 12]
[3] No. of tables containing pepper. [Ans: 15]
[4] No. of tables containing pepper only [Ans: 10]
[5] No. of tables containing salt only. [Ans: 4]
Then there were few symbol based ques.. Like if + is /, / is -, - is * and * is + then evaluate.. there were 4 expressions..
There was a q on odd one out… there were 4 expressions and 3 of them evaluated to 36, the answer was the one which didn’t evaluate to 36.
These comprised of ques [6],[7],[8],[9], [10]…
The next 5 were data sufficiency ones. Very easy… CAT aspirants would sail through this portion.. Very easy ones…
The next five were general questions on aptitude…like
[16] If 5 cakes takes 1 hr 30 mins to bake in an oven when kept together, then how much will it take 10 cakes to bake in an oven when kept together. [ Ans: Same time ]
[17] P and Q can write 135 pages in 27 hrs. P can write 3 pages in 1 hour. How much time will it take Q to write 42 pages. [ Ans: 21]
[18] A beats B in a 100 race by 10m . B beats C in the same race by 10m. Then by how much does A beat C in the same race. [Ans: 20m]
[19] A class took an exam and each scored either 80 or 100 marks. If 10 students gave the exam and 100 was the max score one could get, then find out how many got 100 marks if the average of the class was 94. [Ans : 7]
The last one I don’t exactly remember but that was very easy. Anyone could do it.
The next, the final 5 of this section was a concentrative portion.
If $ represents 1 and * represents 0, then find the following in this code…
There were 5 expressions. One had to find the value of each of the expression and then convert it to binary form and then encode it according to the 1st line. This was a little cautious portion, but keep your cool and don’t make a mistake in finding the binary.
One thing, normally IBM gives q’s on cubes but there were none in our paper. So future aspirants should be knowing how to do the sums of cubes. Just think upon it with a group of frnds and then it wil be fine. Also know the octal, hexadecimal systems and how to find the equivalents of numbers with decimals, like 0.4375
3rd Attention to Detail Section: 10 ques
This was the easiest section. Some patterns were given and you had tell wich patterns were same according to the options. So be calm and keep your eyes open. There were some symbol based questions also. There were 5 questions which were based on a small passage.
It was a passage about a club with some membership criteria to be fulfilled. Don’t read it. Start with the questions and relate the options with a criteria because it was a section named Attention to Detail not Reading Comprehension. So work with the options. This is where maximum students lost the time when they started reading the criteria. Play with the options.
4th Technical Section: 10 ques
This was a tough section especially for the Non IT branches.
4 ques on C/C++, 3 on DBMS, 3 on Unix.
Just brush up your C concepts ans do some intelligent guess work. But the crux lies that you are expected to have all the 1st 3 sections right if want to guarantee a place.
When I went to the Interview Room, the interviewer told me that I only made 3 mistakes in the Technical Section, the rest all were right… ie, my score was 52 out of 55… So try to have a very high score in written.
Before the Interview there was the Essay round of 15 mins and GD.
Essay was a general topic… Primary Education is more important than Higher Studies…
There was a GD round and the GD round carried a lot of marks. There were no eliminations after the GD round but it carried a lot of marks in the final score.
When I entered the interview room, it appeared that I was already selected before it. I had a 5 mins interview session. All was HR, they were asking as if it was a formality. They told me about my written test which I mentioned earlier and also my GD and essay, which was very gud as they said. They didn’t see my file neither my CV. They asked me general ques about family background, place of birth, and about extra-currics. Try to mention things which will shift the interview towards your way. Like they asked me whether I had written any complex programs in C or C++. I said that yes I had written few like the 15 puzzle program, Tic-Tac-Toe, Spiral and I purposely mentioned that I didn’t use any A.I. or some high concept but applied my basic knowledge about C like arrays, pointers… From here he asked me what is an array and a vector, Diff between Call by value and Call by reference, diff. between return() and exit() .. that’t it…
Then they commented on my high C.G.P.A. and asked me my standing in the department. Time was smoothly moving and all my answers were spontaneous. Finally they asked me why a manhole is round. I answered it almost. They shook my hand with an assured face tht I was selected and said: It was very nice meeting you, Ajitesh. The interview was over even before I could realize.
The results were out after 2 hours and 72 were selected…. My name was announced and everything went happily thereafter.
Other panels also asked many on IBM info…
CEO and Chairman ::: Samuel J. Palmisano Headquarters ::: Newyork (Main)
IBM India President::: Shankar Annaswamy Bangalore(India)
IBM India VC ::: Rajesh Nambiar and Amitava Ray..
Visit the IBM site for further details… and one for those who have spectacles…
I have one but I wasn’t asked this one. Other panels had asked what kind of lens does the specs have and draw the ray diagram showing the defect and the effect after the lens. So be confident and try to score high in written, essay and GD… interview will shorten automatically… Ppl with higher C.G.P.A. have great chance in IBM… Good Luck
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