QUADEYE SECURITIES PVT. LTD.

PLACEMENT TEST IIT DELHI 2016-17

NAME
ENTRY NO.
DEPARTMENT

Instructions : Time Limit - 30 minutes

Paper consists of two sections.8 pages in total.
SECTION I contains 11 Questions - 1 mark for each correct answer
with appropriate explanation.
SECTION II contains 7 Questions - 2 marks for each correct answer
with appropriate explanation.

SECTION I
1. A positive integer n is said to be prime-saturated if the product of all the
different positive prime factors of n is less than the square root of n. What is the
greatest two-digit prime-saturated integer?
Ans. 96 (3*2^5)

2. X and Y are two independent normal distributions. X' and Y' are two normal
distributions with same standard deviations as X and Y but with positive
correlation. We define 2 new distributions Z = X+Y and Z' = X'+Y'. Which
between Z and Z' will have higher standard deviation? Explain briefly
Ans. var(Z) = var(Z) + 2*cor(X,Z)
cor(X,Z) >0
=> s.d.(Z)>s.d.(Z)

3. Two players A and B play a marble game. Each player has both a red marble
and a white marble. They present one marble to each other with following cases
RR - A wins 3$, WW - A wins 1$, else B wins 2$. Is it better to be A or B or it
doesn't matter

Ans. better to be B if not a zero sum game.

p_a A picks red , p_b B picks red
Making B indifferent 2*(1-p_a) = 2*p_a => p_a = 0.5
Making A indifferent 3*(p_b) = 1*(1-p_b) => p_b = 0.25
R(a) = 0.5*0.25*3 + 0.5*0.75*1 + 0 + 0 = 0.75
R(b) = 0.5*0.25*2+0.75*0.5*2 + 0 + 0 = 1
1

Doesnt matter in case of zero-sum game

p_a A picks red , p_b B picks red
Making B indifferent 2*(1-p_a) - 3*p_a = 2*p_a -1*(1-p_a)=> p_a = 3/8
Making A indifferent 3*(p_b) -2*(1-p_b)= 1*(1-p_b)-2*p_b => p_b = 3/8
R(a) = 0 , R(b) = 0
4. You start with a single lily pad. The area of the lily pad double every day. It takes
30 days to cover the entire pond. Instead if you start with 8 lily pads how many
days will it take to cover the entire pond?
Ans. 27 days

5. Two random variables have zero correlation. Does this imply independence?
Justify
Ans. take two r.v.s X and X^2. zeros correlation but not independent
With P(X=1) = P(X = 2) =1/4
And P(X=-1) = P(X=-2) = 1/4
Cov(X,X^2) = E[X^3] - E[X]*E[X^2] = 0 -(0*2.5) = 0
But X,X^2 are not independent .

6. X,Y and Z are random variables such that cor(X, Y) = 0.5 and cor(Y, Z) = 0.7.
What possible values can cor(X, Z) take?
Ans. form covariance Matrix and calculate values such that the matrix is +ve
semi-definite
2

=> r^2 - 0.7*r - 0.26 < 0

=> -0.27<=cor(X,Z)<=0.97

7. v, w, x, y, and z are five positive integers for which vwxyz. If the average
(arithmetic mean) of the five numbers is 30 and their median is 25, which is the
least possible value of z?
Ans. z>37.5 => z = 38
v = w = x = 25
y + z = 150 - 25*3 = 75
As y<=z => 2z<75 => z>37.5 => min(z) = 38

8. x is the sum of y consecutive integers. w is the sum of z consecutive integers.

If y = 2z, and y and z are both positive integers, then each of the following could
be true EXCEPT
x=w
x>w
x/y is an integer.
w/z is an integer
x/z is an integer
Ans. x/y is an int
Seq. p+1,p+2,........,p+y and y is even
x = y.p + sum(i) = y.p + y(y+1)/2
x/y = p +z+0.5 , never an int

9. What is the difference between a semaphore and a mutex?

10. What is the difference between a router and a switch?

11. Explain the requirement of the swap memory. What should be its ideal size?

SECTION II
1. There are n letters and n envelopes. Your servant puts the letters randomly in the
envelopes so that each letter is in one envelope and all envelopes have exactly
one letter. (Effectively a random permutation of n numbers chosen uniformly).
Calculate the expected number of envelopes with correct letter inside them.
Ans. Consider the random variable X_i with following properties
1) X_i = 1 if ith letter is in ith envelope
2) X_i = 0 otherwise.
So , X = sum(X_i), this r.v. gives us the number of envelopes with correct letters inside
them.
E(X_i) = 1/n
=> E(X) = (1/n)*n = 1

2. Three people start with integer amounts 10, 22 and 20. In each round, each a fair coin is

tossed. If not all faces are the same, the person with the different face gets a rupee from each of
the other two. If all faces are the same, no money is exchanged. This process is repeated till
one of them gets bankrupt. What is the expected number of rounds till the game ends? Hint :
develop a martingale

Ans. Martingale is
K(n) = abc + 0.75*n(a+b+c-2)
le the game stop after n rounds,
5

E(K(n)) = 0.75*n(a+b+c-2) = K(0) = abc

=> n = (4/3)*(abc/a+b+c-2)

2. You are given an urn with 100 balls (50 black and 50 white). You pick balls from
urn one by one without replacements until all the balls are out. A black followed
by a white or a white followed by a black is "a colour change". Calculate the
expected number of colour changes if the balls are being picked randomly from
the urn.

Ans. 49.5

3. A coin-making machine produces pennies. Each penny is manufactured to have

a probability P of turning up tails. However the machine draws P randomly from
the uniform distribution on [0,1]. A coin pops out from the machine. We toss it
and it comes out to be Heads. What is the conditional cdf of the probability of
head for that coin?

Ans. P(H/Y<=p) = P(H & Y<=p)/P(Y<=p) = int(P(H & Y = p))/int(Y=p)

= (p - 0.5*p^2)/ p = 1 - 0.5*p
6

4. Consider a rod with length 14 m with 100 ants randomly placed on it. At t=0 , all
ants (consider them dimensionless) start moving with 0.7 ms-1 towards any of
the endpoints of rod. If they reach the end of rod, they fall from the rod into
abyss.If they collide, they simply change their direction and start moving towards
another end. Calculate maximum time it takes for the rod to be left with no ants
on it? What happens if there are n ants?

Ans. when ants collide , consider they just go through each other
=> max. Time = max. Length / velocity = 14/0.7 = 20 s
Does not depend on number of ants if n>0.

5. n people stand in a circle in order 1 to n. No. 1 has a sword. He kills the next
person (i.e. No. 2) and gives the sword to the next living person (i.e. No. 3). All
people do the same until only 1 survives. Which number survives to the end?
Give you answer as a closed form equation.

K = [log2(n)]
Ans . 2*(n - 2^k) + 1
7

7. Consider a sequence of numbers with the following two properties:

a) Sum of 7 consecutive terms is positive.
b) Sum of 11 consecutive terms is negative.
Does there exist any sequence with such property? How long can this sequence be?
Ans. Form a matrix
a1 a2 . a7
a2 a3 .. a8
.
.
.
a11 a17
so we cans see that the sum of rows is positive and sum of columns is negative not
possible , => rows till a10..a16 possible =>
max(n) = 16