Aricent Interview Experience of Isha Aggarwal

Written : 

This time, Aricent had an online test instead of written test.
It comprised of 4 sections.

Section 1 :
Questions based on English and verbal ability were there.
Comprehension based questions were there.
Some other questions included : improve the italicized part of the sentence, or to select the synonym or antonym of the given word, to arrange the given sentences in an order, and so on..

Section 2:

This section was to judge your Quantitative aptitude. Questions on Logarithms,profit and loss, speed distance time, work, calculating cost of fencing, etc. type questions were there. Just revise your concepts and main formulas, and that would be enough.
During your mock tests, try making a note of formulas simultaneously.. It wont burden you in the end!

Section 3:
It was a mix of DS concepts and programming concepts. It was a simple section. Just be thorough with basic concepts. In some questions Pseudo codes were given, and output was asked. A few questions on C++ were also there. Only basic concepts.

Section 4:
It was the logical ability section.
Questions were simple in this section as well. Complete the series type, Given a para of information, and then answer the questions. Blood relations, a string encoded as another word, so what will be the code for another word. Notation of operators changed, and then answering the questions that follow. Data sufficiency questions were there.


People who cleared the written were asked to fill the Critical incidence form which consisted of questions like:

• State a situation when you had too many tasks at one time and how did you handle it.
• State a situation when you yourself was busy but still helped someone out.
• When you were in a very difficult situation and you came out of it.
• what was the most difficult decision you ever had to make.
• Write an incidence when you stated an unpopular opinion.
• State a task you completed of which you had very little/no knowledge.

For every question, you have to write what was the situation, how you handled it and what was the outcome!
This form will be discussed in detail during HR. So don't cook up stories.Try to think of real incidents..

Include 

We were then called for GD in a group of 10 or 12, and it was a non-eliminatory round.



INTERVIEW :

I was first asked about the programming language I am comfortable in and about some programs that I have done.
Then he asked me to write a factorial program optimally, I wrote both the recursive and iterative approach, and told him about the pros and cons of each.
Next he asked me to write a program to swap 2 numbers optimally. For this I wrote the program without using any temporary variable. I then told him about XOR method as well. He then asked me what is XOR operation and asked me to do swapping using XOR with an example.

Then he asked me to explain Quicksort with an example. He basically wanted complete dry run. Then he asked me the running time of quicksort. When I answered about worst case running time, he asked me to give a worst case input for QS.
Then he asked me differences between Insertion sort and Bubble sort, again with an example of each.

Next, he asked me to explain how to implement stack using Linked list.Where push and pop will be done, etc.
And then implementation of queue with linked list. etc.

Then he moved to OS :
Asked me what is a process, characteristics of a process. Structure of PCB. Difference between a thread and a process.What is a semaphore.Why is it used. Types of semaphore etc.

I guess that was all. He then discussed the critical incidence form in detail, so no seperate HR for me!

All the very best to all :)