Looking for your next career move? Love hard data? Then why not test your skills and see if ‘data scientist’ could be your next job.
The government has suggested up to 234,000 roles requiring hard data skills will be needed in the coming years by UK companies, and despite the sector being worth up to £73.3billion to the economy, almost half of employers recruiting for data positions have struggled to find candidates.
To help prospective employees see if they could fit the bill, Experian has designed three ‘hard data’ puzzles to challenge your core skills.
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‘This challenge is a great indicator of the extent to which someone’s brain is geared towards solving data problems,’ said Jonathan Wesley, chief data officer at Experian. ‘We’ve designed it so that anyone who puzzles can have a go, and creative thinking and logic will go as far as experience in helping find the answers.
‘Our hope is that by helping people think outside the “traditional” routes into a data career, we can help encourage a more diverse cohort of future data scientists into this exciting and thriving sector.
‘The UK is a great place to work if you’re interested in data analytics. From healthcare and education to entertainment, sports coaching and fashion, a huge range of industries now require an element of data expertise. And with some of the most exciting data companies in the world operating out of the UK, the breadth of opportunity is immense.’
So take a break, sit down, and try out your data skills – who knows where it might lead?
Puzzle 1: The Coffee House Conundrum
Scenario You are working at a trendy coffee house with some colleagues planning your next big event. Your task is to serve refreshments to a group of data scientists seated at a long table. Each person has specific preferences for their drink, and your goal is to deduce the correct drink order for each person based on a few clues.
Can you solve the puzzle and ensure everyone gets the right drink?
Here are the clues:
- There are five customers sitting at the table: Alice, Suresh, Farah, Dan and Cora
- The drinks available are coffee, tea, juice, soda, and water
- Each customer has a unique preference for their drink, and no two people order the same beverage.
The following clues will help you deduce the correct drink order for each person:
a) Alice, who is sitting at the far left, wants something warm and comforting, but she doesn’t like coffee
b) Suresh, who is allergic to caffeine, is seated next to Alice and doesn’t drink tea or soda
c) Farah, who is sitting between Suresh and Dan, prefers a drink with a fruity flavour
d) Dan doesn’t like hot or sugary drinks
e) Coral is allergic to oranges, and is sitting on the far right
Now it’s your turn to use deductive reasoning to determine the correct drink order for each person. Good luck!
Puzzle 2: The Lost Robot
Scenario You are a programmer guiding a robot around a tech event’s exhibition hall. You need to guide the robot to the Experian stand by writing a simple code.
Instructions
1. The maze is a 5×5 grid, represented as follows:
- The robot’s current position is marked as ‘R’
- The exit is marked as ‘E’
- Empty spaces are represented by ‘.’
. . . . .
. . . . .
. . R . .
. . . . .
. . . . E
2. The robot can move in four directions: up, down, left, and right.
3. You need to write a code that moves the robot step by step towards the exit.
Code Instructions Use the following commands to control the robot:
- ‘U’ for moving up
- ‘D’ for moving down
- ‘L’ for moving left
- ‘R’ for moving right
Write a sequence of commands to guide the robot to the exit.
For example, if you want the robot to move up, then right, then down, the code would be: ‘URD’.
Write the code sequence that guides the robot from its current position to the stand.
Puzzle 3: The St James’s Park Duck Pond
Scenario A group of data scientists visit St James’s Park and spot a beautiful circular pond with a circumference of 100metres.
A family of ducks is swimming around the pond, starting from the same point. The father duck takes 30 seconds to complete one full lap, the mother duck takes 40 seconds, and the baby duck takes 60 seconds.
Question After how many seconds will all three ducks be back at the starting point simultaneously?
Hint Think about the least common multiple (LCM) of the times it takes for each duck to complete one full lap.
Answers
Puzzle 1: The Coffee House Conundrum
Based on the clues provided, the correct drink order for each person is as follows:
Alice – tea
Suresh – juice
Farah – Soda
Dan – water
Coral – coffee
Puzzle 2: The Lost Robot
RDDR
Puzzle 3: The St James’s Park Duck Pond
To find the answer, we need to calculate the least common multiple (LCM) of the times it takes for each duck to complete one full lap. In this case, the LCM of 30, 40 and 60 is 120 seconds. Therefore, all three ducks will be back at the starting point simultaneously after 120 seconds
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