Consulting Case Interview Fast Math Drills 3

Posted on January 4, 2011 by ibh

Feel nervous about your number-crunching math skills? Try to improve by practicing our Consulting Case Interview Fast Math Drills quiz. Note: No calculator is allowed during the quiz, and you may use a pencil and a piece of scratch paper. Try your best to answer all 10 questions in 10 minutes. The correct answers will be shown at the end of the quiz.

1. During a 5-day Carnival celebration of New Orleans Mardi Gras, the number of visitors to the city of New Orleans tripled each day. If the festival opened on a Thursday with 34,500 visitors, what was the number of visitors on that Sunday?






2. If two planes leave the Dallas/Fort Worth International Airport at 1:00 PM, how many miles apart will they be at 3:00 PM if one travels directly south to Houston George Bush Intercontinental Airport at 150 mph and the other travels directly west to Phoenix Sky Harbor International Airport at 200 mph?






3. The last week of November a Toyota dealership in Los Angeles sold 12 cars. A new sales promotion came out the first week of December and the dealership sold 19 cars that week. What was the percent increase in sales from the last week of November compared to the first week of December?






4. After purchasing a Sony flat screen television for $750.00 from BestBuy on Black Friday, Brad Pitt realizes that he got a great deal on it and wishes to sell it on Ebay for a 15% profit. What should his asking price be for the television?






5. Due to recent financial crisis, Miley Cyrus was laid off and was forced to take temporary jobs. She worked 22 hours this week as a cashier at a local supermarket and made $132. If she works 15 hours next week at the same pay rate, how much will she make?






6. Last week American Apparel Inc's (AMEX: APP) stock price increased by $0.30 from the low that I barely missed buying it at to a high of $4.00.  What percentage would I have taken home if I miraculously bought the low and sold the high.






7. You have developed a career coaching website that trains law school students for the bar exams. It cost you $1,200 to buy the domain name from its previous owner, $15,000 to hire IT people to develop the site, and then you spent $10,000 to market the website to law school students. Students pay $50 for a lifetime access to your site. How many individual customers do you need to breakeven?






8. A professor of finance at the University of Chicago Booth School of Business is paid $164,000 annually. The school also pays her benefits, which cost the school 30% of her base salary. Between consulting gigs, book sales, and speaking engagements, the $164,000 base salary made up only 17% of her total income. What did she bring home last year? Tuition at Booth School of Business for full-time MBA students in 2010-2011 is $50,900 a year (10 Courses). Approximately, how many MBAs' tuition does it take to pay the professorʼs salary and benefits?






9. A hotdog cart makes 130 sales during lunch time, 1 in every 7 customers also buy a drink, there are 4 types of drinks to choose from (Coke, Diet Coke, Gatorade, and Bottled Water). On average only 30% of those who buy drinks do NOT buy bottled water. So how many people buy bottled water during lunch at this cart?






10. In 2005 Exxon Mobilʼs revenues were $99.66 billion. Their net income was $36.13 billion. What percentage is net income of revenues?








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27 Responses to Consulting Case Interview Fast Math Drills 3

  1. BB SGH says:
    March 21, 2013 at 7:55 pm

    10/10 in just under 6 :) Nice site btw :)

    Reply
  2. bonjourchriss says:
    February 20, 2013 at 11:53 pm

    9/10 in 9 1/2 mins

    Reply
  3. Kenku says:
    November 27, 2012 at 5:21 am

    10 in 10 in 12.5 min with a good guesstimate in #6

    Reply
  4. Prinz says:
    August 29, 2012 at 2:03 am

    9/10 in 12 min.

    Reply
  5. T says:
    July 2, 2012 at 12:30 pm

    I think there may be a problem with Q9. I believe the answer is 12 (not listed on the options) because:

    1. 1/7 of 130 is 18.6, but you can’t have 0.6 customers. Therefore, you only made 18 drinks sales.
    2. Out of the 18 sales, 70% is water. Again, you get 12.6, and based on the same reasoning as above, you sold 12 bottles.

    Reply
  6. SJ says:
    June 13, 2012 at 11:45 pm

    Didnt understand Q6. If original price was X, then you buy at X + 0.30 and sell at 4.00, then the percentage you take home would be (4.00 – (X+0.30)) / (X+0.30). Am I understanding the question right? Thanks.

    Reply
  7. nhumbataliyev says:
    April 4, 2012 at 3:58 am

    10 out 10 in 14′

    Reply
  8. Rayuela says:
    February 28, 2012 at 5:33 pm

    Really good questions – but could someone tell me why do we use 27, not 9, in question 1? I thought that if we triple the number each day, we should have a following equation to solve: 3 x 3 x 34,500. Any help more than appreciated!

    Reply
  9. James says:
    January 20, 2012 at 7:59 am

    9/10 in 7 minutes

    Reply
  10. Florian says:
    January 17, 2012 at 12:47 pm

    Q6: The solution is clear to me but how do you calculate 0.3 / 3.7 without any calculator? Fast help would be appreciated. Thank you.

    Reply
    • Ram says:
      January 17, 2012 at 1:53 pm

      If you were born and raised in the US where kids learn to to use calculators for every calculation in grade school, even for the simplest arithmetics, it may be hard for you to understand, but believe me, kids in China, India, Russia, etc., can do 0.3 / 3.7 easily with a pencil and scratch paper. I can show you if you want.

      Reply
      • Florian says:
        January 17, 2012 at 3:55 pm

        What you say about schools and calculators is true. In fact we never learned to divide by 2 digit numbers by hand, as far as I can remember. But now as I looked it up, it seems that there is no better way than doing it as divisions with 1 digit divisors, which can be pretty slow for me because you need to estimate a lot …

        Reply
        • mk says:
          May 1, 2012 at 12:52 pm

          You don’t need to do the whole division. Read the answers briefly first then proceed with dividing. If you divide correctly, you’ll find there’s only possible answer after one step. (c. in this case). Hope this helps, mk

          Reply
    • Edge says:
      July 4, 2012 at 7:48 pm

      Don’t need to. Solve it this way ==> 3.7 (X) = 4.0 ==> solve for X and get 1.081. Therefore 8.1% increase.

      Reply
    • Ajay123 says:
      August 8, 2012 at 2:18 am

      approximate 0.3/3.7 to 0.3/3.6 which is 1/12. 1/12 is half of 1/6 which is 16.6%… so 1/12 is 8.3%
      that’s my “fast” method!

      Reply
  11. Naz says:
    January 7, 2012 at 10:26 pm

    Can someone clarify Q2? What is the formula for it? I thought you would add the square of 150 and 200 and then the square root of the answer would be it (250) – which is the formula to find the third side of a triangle. But that’s incorrect. Any insight would be appreciated!

    Reply
  12. LPS says:
    October 21, 2011 at 8:17 am

    10 out of 10 in 9 minutes

    Reply
  13. Demid says:
    September 28, 2011 at 12:35 am

    Awesome problems. They present the ideal mix of being challenging, yet doable. Nice use of traps as well – I got caught by the one in #8 and answered C. :(

    Reply
  14. Marko says:
    February 11, 2011 at 6:16 am

    9/10 in 9min49sec… not bad!

    Reply
  15. Jonathan Anguelov says:
    February 7, 2011 at 3:23 am

    7 out of 10 in 13 minutes. Very interesting case !!

    Reply

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