Cisco Interview Experience 2023

Online Assessment : 

They shortlisted students based on resumes and allowed to write the test. It was conducted on Oct 2, 2022.

The assessment had MCQs and Coding Questions. Total 42 Questions. 

40 MCQs on Aptitutde, Operating Systems, Computer Networks. 2 Coding Questions.

Question 1 : 

You are given ‘n’ piggy banks, indexed from 0 to n-1. Each piggy bank contains some amount of money in it which is represented by an array of ‘nums’. You are asked to break all the piggy banks in any order. If you break the ith piggy bank, you will get the amount equivalent to (nums[i-1]*nums[nums[i]*nums[i+1]) dollars. If i-1 or i+1 goes out of the bounds of the array, then treat it as if there is a piggy bank with 1 US Dollar in it. The goal is to return the maximum amount of dollars you can collect by breaking the piggy banks.

Sample Input 0
4
3158
Sample Output 0 
167

Explanation 0

Initially, you have [3,1,5,8]. Break the bank at index 1 i.e one with 1 dollar. The amount collected is (3*1*5) i.e 15. The remaining banks are as [3,5,8]. Now break the bank at index 1 with 5 dollars. The amount collected is (3*5*8) i.e 120. So the total amount is now 135. The remaining banks are as [3,8]. Now break the bank at index 0 with 3 dollars, Amount collected is (138) i.e. 24. So the total amount is now 159. The remaining banks are as [8]. Now break the last bank with 8 dollars. The amount collected is (181) i.e 8. The final amount is now 167. Any other order would result in a lower collection.

Sample Input 1
2
1 5
Sample Output 1
10
Explanation 1 

Initially, you have [1,5]. Break the bank at index 0 i.e. with 1 dollar, the Amount collected is (1*1*5) i.e 5. The remaining banks are as [5]. Now break the last bank with 5 dollars. Amount collected is (1*5*1) i.e 5. Final amount is now 10. Other orders would result in a lower collection of only 5+1 i.e 6 dollars.

Solution : 

Take an input n which represents the number of elements in an ArrayList arr containing the monthly stock prices. Then calculates the sum of the products of three consecutive elements in arr (excluding the first and last element, if there are only two elements, the product is taken once). This calculation is done until there is only one element left in the list, and then the sum of that element is added to the final result.

Question 2 :

Giver an array of N integers where each number a[x] indicates a stack of cubical bricks of height a[x]. Essentially the array represents N stacks of bricks. The goal in to determine the largest n x n matrix (square matrix) embedded in this array of stacks

Input format:
The first line indicates the size of the integer array say N. Each of the next N lines represent the height of the stack at index x where 1 <= x <=N
Output
Value of n where nxn matrix is the largest one embedded in the stacks.

Example :

Input : 

3

5

4

3

Output :

3

Solution : 

Take an input of n followed by n integers. Find the length of the longest consecutive subsequence of integers that starts at 1 and ends at the maximum element of the given input array by iterating through the array twice, once from left to right and once from right to left, and keeping track of the minimum element seen so far and the count of consecutive elements seen. Finally, print the length of the longest consecutive subsequence.

8/15 Cases Passed.

I got shortlisted mail on Oct 20, 2022. From there on, conversations happened through Webex. There were 3 rounds, 2 technical and 1 HR. All of them happened on the same day.

Technical Interview (Round 1) :

It happened for about 45min. Mam first asked me to introduce myself. Later she asked me questions on OS and CN. We later moved on to coding and she asked me questions on Arrays in Python. I could solve it half and she helped me. 

Technical Interview(Round 2) :

It happened for 10-15min. He asked me questions about my projects and some general topics. There weren’t must tech questions.

HR (Round 3) :

He asked me if I’d like to relocate and told me about the stipend details,

I was hoping I’d get into it but I couldn’t. I received a mail that they had to take only limited students and I didn’t make the cut.