Nowadays, job interviews test more than just professional knowledge and experience. Most companies try to evaluate their prospective employees to find out those with problem-solving skills. Consequently, you may find some advanced brain teaser questions in many job interviews. Read on to see some of the more commonly asked questions and answers in this article.

Question 1
A mafia gang member kidnaps you. He puts two bullets consecutively into a six-chamber revolver. He spins it and shoots at you. The first chamber is empty; he asks you if he should shoot straightaway or spin it again before shooting.

Answer:
The better choice will be to take your chances and ask him to shoot again.
Since the bullets are in consecutive slots, and the first chamber was empty, the possible bullet combinations are:

BXXXXB
XXXXBB
XXXBBX
XXBBXX
XBBXXX
BBXXXX

The first slot was empty, so 1 and 6 are eliminated. The probability of being hit by a second shot is only 25% or one out of four possible scenarios. This is better than having him spin again, where the probability of being hit returns to two out of a possible six scenarios, or 33%.

Question 2
You are to get exactly four gallons with a three-gallon keg and a five-gallon keg. What will you do?

Answer:
Label the three-gallon keg as A and the five-gallon keg as B.

Fill up A and pour it into B. Then, fill A up again and empty it into B till it’s full. You will have exactly one gallon left in A.

Empty B and pour the one gallon left in A into it. Fill A up again and pour it into B. You will have four gallons of fluid in B now.

Question 3
You are in a room with three light switches. They connect to a light bulb in the next room, but you can’t see through to that room. You can only inspect that room once. How will you determine which switch controls which bulb, assuming all bulbs are off, to begin with?

Answer:
Label the three switches 1, 2, and 3. In the first room, flick switch one on and leave it for five minutes. Then, switch it off and switch on 2. Wait for two minutes before entering the second room.

The light bulb that is on is connected to switch 2. You feel the other two for the warmer one; switch 1 controls that one, while the third one connects to switch 3.

Question 4
You are in a room with three boxes. Each contains apples, oranges, and a mixture of apples and oranges. The boxes are mislabeled, and you are to label them correctly by picking up only fruit from one of the boxes. What would you do?

Answer:
Pick a fruit from the box labeled “Apples and Oranges.” Since all the boxes are not labeled correctly, it must contain either only apples or only oranges.

If you pick an apple, it means the box contains apples. Change the label to “Apples.” The ” Oranges ” box is still wrong, but it isn’t apples, either. So it is “Apples and Oranges.” The last box is “Oranges.”

Here are a few tough brain teaser questions you could encounter when you go for job interviews.