Infosys Puzzles

Increase your chances for getting selected for an interview by practicing the placement papers of companies like WIPRO, TCS, INFOSYS, IBM,  Motorola, Satyam, CSC, TI, Intel, etc.

To practice Infosys's recruitment Puzzles test for selecting candidates for interview visit:
INFOSYS Test Puzzles

Visit Campus Placement papers and Interview Questions to access placement papers of companies like Infosys, Wipro, HCL, HP, Motorola, TCS,IBM, etc

Mahindra Satyam Campus Recruitment Experience

www.careerinfoline.com is a mentorship forum, where one can get access to professionals from various domains. Also visit to see more interview experience, interview questions and placement papers. 

I would like to thanks www.CareerInfoline.com for initiating this experience sharing platform with campus students.

I got placed in Mahindra Satyam through joint campus placement.

It was an on-line test and the pattern was similar to that of Mahindra British Telecom

Earlier I had appeard for MBT so i had an experience of written exam, i could not clear the written test of MBT due to some mistakes.

So i tried not to do the same mistakes this time.

Eligibility criteria:

60%in B.Tech with no backlogs

No break in academics from more than 1 year

Age not more than 23 year for B.Tech

On line test:

There were 6 sections:

Section1: Non verbal and reasoning (35 q)

Section2: Verbal(10q)

Section3: Quant(15q)

Section4: English1(10q)

Section5: English2(10q)

Section6: English 3 reading comp(2 passeges)

There were 90 questions to be attempted in 60 min and there was a sectional cut off so time management was very much crucial for every section.

Test was an easy one for 1st 3 sections R.S. Aggarwal is more than sufficient.Most of the questions were from R.S. Aggarwal.

Passeges/ RC were very easy and i was quite sure of my answers in this section and 1st 3 sections.

Section 4,5 included antonyms ,synonyms, fill-ups,finding errors and phrases and out of these 20 questions only 7 or 8 questions were correct.

Since there was no negative marking, so I attempted all questions.

I had given my best this time ...so i was very much relaxed after written exam. After half an hour results were announced. And i was one of the lucky ones who were selected for the next round.

For clearing written exam, i will suggest it is better to leave the time consuming questions even if you can solve them......& to attempt the english section first..as it consumes very little time........

Now there were 2 rounds 1st one was technical interview and then HR.

After 3 hr when my turn came both rounds were combined and now was a single interview round for both technical and HR.

Interview round:

I entered my inerview room greeted my interviewee with a smile and was asked 2 have a seat

I ws asked many questions relating 2 my brancch(ECE),puzzles and c language.It took 45 min.

Some of questions were..

Mahindra Satyam Interviewer. Introduce yourself.

Myself: (abt myself, my parents, my acedemics record, hobbies)

Mahindra Satyam Interviewer. Tell me something about your project.

Myself: Explained

Mahindra Satyam Interviewer. What was your favourite subject in 10th class?

Myself.  Every subject.

Career Infoline Word of Advice:  Make sure you answer this only if you are confident about knowledge on these subjects. Interviewer may ask you anything related to any subject you have studied during this time. Better is to tell one which is your favourite one and is more aligned to engineering.

Mahindra Satyam Interviewer. What were the laws given by newton and explain them?

Myself: Answered

Mahindra Satyam Interviewer. Difference of xy wrt x if y is constant and if variable.

Myself: Solved

Mahindra Satyam Interviewer. What is the difference b/w diode and transister?

Myself: Explained diode 2 terminal and transister 3 terminal

Mahindra Satyam Interviewer. What are the applications of diodes?

Myself: Answered

Mahindra Satyam Interviewer. What is flux?

Myself: I had an idea about it so explained.

Mahindra Satyam Interviewer. What is the difference b/w transducer and transponder?

Myself: Explained transducer but i had no idea about transponder so said sorry for 2nd one.

Mahindra Satyam Interviewer. What are filters and types of filters?

Myself: Exlained

Mahindra Satyam Interviewer. What are synchronous and asynchronous circuits?

Myself: Explained

Mahindra Satyam Interviewer. What are oscillatorss what are they used for?

Myself: Explained

Mahindra Satyam Interviewer: e.g. of an osc that is practicaly used?

Myself: Answered

Mahindra Satyam Interviewer.What are maxwell laws?

Myself: I had no idea so i said sorry sir i dont know much about them but they are used for calculating flux.

Mahindra Satyam Interviewer. Difference b/w 8086 and 8085?

Myself: Explained one is 16 bit and another is 8 bit and told about address lines.

Mahindra Satyam Interviewer. Difference b/w microprocessor and microcontroller?

Myself: Explained 4 diff b/w them.

Mahindra Satyam Interviewer. Define arrays in C

Mysef:  Explained

Mahindra Satyam Interviewer. Define pointers with example.

Mysef:  Explained

Mahindra Satyam Interviewer. Do you know something about software testing?

Myself: I said politely no sir.

Mahindra Satyam Interviewer. Do you know about fibonnaci series?

Mysef:  I said yes and explained the logic behind series.

Mahindra Satyam Interviewer. A series was given 2 me and i was 2 find out next no.

Mysef:  (sorry dont remember the series) Icould not solve it.

Mahindra Satyam Interviewer. Again I was given a puzzle.

Mysef:  I solved it idea behind it was x^2+y^2=ans

Mahindra Satyam Interviewer. If there are n persons in a room and total handshakes are 66 n=?

Mysef:  I said nC2=66

Then he explained in other way if 2 den handshakes=1

3 1+2

4 1+2+3

for n

I said n(n-1)/2=66, he was impressed with my answer.

Mahindra Satyam Interviewer. Where do you see yourself after 5 yrs?

Mysef: I had prepared this question so answered confidently.

Mahindra Satyam Interviewer. Why do you want 2 join Mahindra Satyam?

Mysef:  Explained

Mahindra Satyam Interviewer. Do you have some location problem like if we send you 2 chennai

Myself: I said no.

After this he was satisfied with my response. He shook hand with me.After waiting for an hour at about 3:15 am results were displayed .

I was selected . I was very happy. FINALLY PLACED.

So I would say be confident while your interview, whether you know the answer or not .

All the best for the aspiring ones.

CAT Preparation: A detailed analysis

For accessing quality CAT tests login to www.mymbaprep.com and for guidance and discussing your doubts with IIM mentors login to www.careerinfoline.com.

What does it take to crack the CAT?

The first and most important requirement to crack the CAT is aptitude. If you don’t have it, it’s very difficult to get a good CAT score. Aptitude is one thing that cannot be acquired or built up by practice. But don’t think that this fact undermines the importance of practice in the course of CAT preparation. While you may have the right aptitude, you may falter on the D-day just because you don’t have the right temperament and attitude to face the situation. The pressure on the day is immense and, unless you have built the confidence to face it by practising under simulated environment and doing a detailed analysis of your performance throughout the preparation period, you can very well have a bad day when it matters. While aptitude determines the zone in which your CAT score may finally lie, practice reduces the variability of that score and tends to push your score towards the ceiling of your zone. Practice does not mean taking numerous mock tests to get familiar with the kind of questions that may be asked or to optimise your time distribution for the various sections of the paper. The more important part entails that you analyse each and every paper you take to identify the kinds of problems you are good at and the types of mistakes you make. After identifying your strengths and weaknesses you need to take subsequent papers with the aim of improving your knack of picking the problems you can solve easily (and also in quick time, as an easy problem which takes a lot of time is no good). Moreover, you need to work on your weaknesses too, because you never know what will be the exact pattern of the paper and you may run out of easy problems to solve. But before all this you need to develop the platform for making your practice sessions more effective. This can be done by revising the theoretical concepts thoroughly so that you don’t make blunders at later stages. So, the right mix of aptitude, theory, practice and analysis will help you sail through one of the most competitive exams in the world!

What was my strategy for CAT?

My strategy for CAT was simple. As I said you cannot acquire aptitude by any means, I thought it was no point worrying about something I do not have control upon. If I had the ability it will be evident in the result, otherwise it will make me a wiser person in terms of understanding my weaknesses. So, I just concentrated on building up my confidence of taking the paper in a pressure situation and worked on my temperament throughout the period. For this, I first brushed up the concepts and then started the practice sessions, coming back to the concepts whenever I felt the need. I did not take too many tests, a blunder many people do during CAT preparation, but focussed on analysing each and every paper thoroughly. I also took self administered previous years’ CAT papers and followed them up with analysis. This helped in steadying my performance towards the end of the preparation period when I was able to get more or less similar scores in most of the tests I took. I was also pretty confident of myself in the real CAT and was sure I could handle any kind of variation they might put in the paper.

Tips for Various Sections:

a.    Reading Comprehension

RC is all about reading more and more, be it newspapers, novels or internet articles to make yourself familiar with various styles of writing and to improve your reading speed without compromising on comprehension. Apart from that attempting the RC passages in the mocks you take and analysing your answers to understand why your viewpoint differed from the actual answer is also important. Even if you are not able to cover all the passages within the time limit for the mock, you should attempt them later keeping appropriate time constraints.

b.    Verbal Ability

The VA part tests your foundation of grammar as well as vocabulary. Vocabulary can be improved by doing a lot of reading, which may be combined with RC practice. But the important thing is to be on the lookout for unfamiliar words and understanding their meaning as well as the various contexts in which the word can be used. This is necessary because the same word can have different meanings in different contexts. Your grammar can be tested directly in sentence correction/completion or in questions like parajumbles, etc. For this you need to brush up the basics and identify the subtle variations that may confuse you. This should be followed up with a lot of practice to build an instinctive ability to sense anything wrong in a sentence.

c.    Logical Reasoning

You can improve your logical reasoning ability by getting familiar with all the types of questions possible, though there is a limit to the improvement. Search for some good books on logical reasoning and practice hard. Also cover all the questions in the mocks and previous CAT papers.

d.    Data Interpretation

DI requires you to be good with numbers, in terms of interpretation ability as well as quick calculations. So, improve upon these two qualities by solving sufficient number of problems and practising the various shortcut techniques available for calculations. If you are not comfortable with the techniques, u may make blunders in the CAT or may have to fall back upon the time taking regular calculation methods.

e.    Quantitative Ability

The first thing to do for quant is to be thorough with your concepts, as this is one section where your concepts are really tested. Then you should improve your ability to apply the concepts by practising a lot. Fast calculation ability will also come in handy for this section.  

Ashutosh Jha

IIM- Lucknow

IIT- Delhi