TOP 30

Interview Question

Created by- Topper World

 Topperworld.in

Q 1. What is Data Science?

Ans: An interdisciplinary field that constitutes various scientific processes,

algorithms, tools, and machine learning techniques working to help find
common patterns and gather sensible insights from the given raw input data
using statistical and mathematical analysis is called Data Science.

1. It starts with gathering the business requirements and relevant data.

2. Once the data is acquired, it is maintained by performing data cleaning,
data warehousing, data staging, and data architecture.
3. Data processing does the task of exploring the data, mining it, and
analyzing it which can be finally used to generate the summary of the
insights extracted from the data.
4. Once the exploratory steps are completed, the cleansed data is subjected
to various algorithms like predictive analysis, regression, text mining,
recognition patterns, etc depending on the requirements.
5. In the final stage, the results are communicated to the business in a
visually appealing manner. This is where the skill of data visualization,
reporting, and different business intelligence tools come into the picture.

Q 2.What is the difference between data analytics and data science?

Ans:

⚫ Data science involves the task of transforming data by using various

technical analysis methods to extract meaningful insights using which a
data analyst can apply to their business scenarios.

⚫ Data analytics deals with checking the existing hypothesis and

information and answers questions for a better and effective business-
related decision-making process.
⚫ Data Science drives innovation by answering questions that build
connections and answers for futuristic problems. Data analytics focuses
on getting present meaning from existing historical context whereas
data science focuses on predictive modeling.

©Topperworld
 ©Topperworld

⚫ Data Science can be considered as a broad subject that makes use of

various mathematical and scientific tools and algorithms for solving
complex problems whereas data analytics can be considered as a
specific field dealing with specific concentrated problems using fewer
tools of statistics and visualization.

Q 3. What are some of the techniques used for sampling? What is

the main advantage of sampling?

Ans: Data analysis can not be done on a whole volume of data at a time
especially when it involves larger datasets. It becomes crucial to take some
data samples that can be used for representing the whole population and
then perform analysis on it. While doing this, it is very much necessary to
carefully take sample data out of the huge data that truly represents the
entire dataset.

©Topperworld
There are majorly two categories of sampling techniques based on the usage
of statistics, they are:

) Probability Sampling techniques: Clustered sampling, Simple random

sampling, Stratified sampling.
) Non-Probability Sampling techniques: Quota sampling, Convenience
sampling, snowball sampling, etc.
©Topperworld

Q 4. List down the conditions for Overfitting and Underfitting.

Ans:

➢ Overfitting: The model performs well only for the sample training
data. If any new data is given as input to the model, it fails to provide
any result. These conditions occur due to low bias and high variance
in the model. Decision trees are more prone to overfitting.
➢ Underfitting: Here, the model is so simple that it is not able to identify
the correct relationship in the data, and hence it does not perform
well even on the test data. This can happen due to high bias and low
variance. Linear regression is more prone to Underfitting.

©Topperworld
 ©Topperworld

Q 5. Differentiate between the long and wide format data.

Ans:

Long format Data Wide-Format Data

Here, each row of the data represents

Here, the repeated responses of a
the one-time information of a subject.
subject are part of separate
Each subject would have its data in
columns.
different/ multiple rows.

The data can be recognized by The data can be recognized by

considering rows as groups. considering columns as groups.

This data format is rarely used in R

This data format is most commonly
analyses and most commonly used
used in R analyses and to write into log
in stats packages for repeated
files after each trial.
measures ANOVAs.

Q 6. What are Eigenvectors and Eigenvalues?

Ans: Eigenvectors are column vectors or unit vectors whose

length/magnitude is equal to 1. They are also called right vectors.
Eigenvalues are coefficients that are applied on eigenvectors which give
these vectors different values for length or magnitude.

©Topperworld
 ©Topperworld

A matrix can be decomposed into Eigenvectors and Eigenvalues and this

process is called Eigen decomposition. These are then eventually used in
machine learning methods like PCA (Principal Component Analysis) for
gathering valuable insights from the given matrix.

Q 7. What does it mean when the p-values are high and low?

Ans: A p-value is the measure of the probability of having results equal to

or more than the results achieved under a specific hypothesis assuming that
the null hypothesis is correct. This represents the probability that the
observed difference occurred randomly by chance.

⚫ Low p-value which means values ≤ 0.05 means that the null hypothesis
can be rejected and the data is unlikely with true null.
⚫ High p-value, i.e values ≥ 0.05 indicates the strength in favor of the null
hypothesis. It means that the data is like with true null.
⚫ p-value = 0.05 means that the hypothesis can go either way.

Q 8. When is resampling done?

Ans: Resampling is a methodology used to sample data for improving

accuracy and quantify the uncertainty of population parameters.

It is done to ensure the model is good enough by training the model on

different patterns of a dataset to ensure variations are handled.

It is also done in the cases where models need to be validated using random
subsets or when substituting labels on data points while performing tests.

©Topperworld
 ©Topperworld

Q 9. What do you understand by Imbalanced Data?

Ans: Data is said to be highly imbalanced if it is distributed unequally across

different categories. These datasets result in an error in model performance
and result in inaccuracy.

Q 10. Are there any differences between the expected value and
mean value?

Ans: There are not many differences between these two, but it is to be noted
that these are used in different contexts. The mean value generally refers to
the probability distribution whereas the expected value is referred to in the
contexts involving random variables.

Q 11. What do you understand by Survivorship Bias?

Ans: This bias refers to the logical error while focusing on aspects that
survived some process and overlooking those that did not work due to lack
of prominence. This bias can lead to deriving wrong conclusions.

©Topperworld
 ©Topperworld

Q 12.Define the terms KPI, lift, model fitting, robustness and DOE.

Ans:

➢ KPI: KPI stands for Key Performance Indicator that measures how well
the business achieves its objectives.
➢ Lift: This is a performance measure of the target model measured
against a random choice model. Lift indicates how good the model is at
prediction versus if there was no model.
➢ Model fitting: This indicates how well the model under consideration
fits given observations.
➢ Robustness: This represents the system ’ s capability to handle
differences and variances effectively.
➢ DOE: stands for the design of experiments, which represents the task
design aiming to describe and explain information variation under
hypothesized conditions to reflect variables.

Q 13. Define confounding variables.

Ans: Confounding variables are also known as confounders. These variables

are a type of extraneous variables that influence both independent and
dependent variables causing spurious association and mathematical
relationships between those variables that are associated but are not
casually related to each other.

©Topperworld
 ©Topperworld

Q 14. Define and explain selection bias?

Ans: The selection bias occurs in the case when the researcher has to make
a decision on which participant to study. The selection bias is associated with
those researches when the participant selection is not random. The selection
bias is also called the selection effect. The selection bias is caused by as a
result of the method of sample collection.

Four types of selection bias are explained below:

1. Sampling Bias: As a result of a population that is not random at all,

some members of a population have fewer chances of getting included
than others, resulting in a biased sample. This causes a systematic error
known as sampling bias.
2. Time interval: Trials may be stopped early if we reach any extreme
value but if all variables are similar invariance, the variables with the
highest variance have a higher chance of achieving the extreme value.
3. Data: It is when specific data is selected arbitrarily and the generally
agreed criteria are not followed.
4. Attrition: Attrition in this context means the loss of the participants. It
is the discounting of those subjects that did not complete the trial.

Q 15. Define bias-variance trade-off?

Ans:

➢ Bias: It is a kind of error in a machine learning model when an ML

Algorithm is oversimplified. When a model is trained, at that time it
makes simplified assumptions so that it can easily understand the
target function. Some algorithms that have low bias are Decision
Trees, SVM, etc. On the other hand, logistic and linear regression
algorithms are the ones with a high bias.
➢ Variance: Variance is also a kind of error. It is introduced into an ML
Model when an ML algorithm is made highly complex. This model also
learns noise from the data set that is meant for training. It further

©Topperworld
 performs badly on the test data set. This may lead to over lifting as
well as high sensitivity.

When the complexity of a model is increased, a reduction in the error is

seen. This is caused by the lower bias in the model. But, this does not
happen always till we reach a particular point called the optimal point.
After this point, if we keep on increasing the complexity of the model,
it will be over lifted and will suffer from the problem of high variance.
We can represent this situation with the help of a graph as shown
below:

As you can see from the image above, before the optimal point,
increasing the complexity of the model reduces the error (bias).
However, after the optimal point, we see that the increase in the
complexity of the machine learning model increases the variance.

➢ Trade-off Of Bias And Variance: So, as we know that bias and

variance, both are errors in machine learning models, it is very
essential that any machine learning model has low variance as well as
a low bias so that it can achieve good performance.

©Topperworld
 ©Topperworld

Let us see some examples. The K-Nearest Neighbor Algorithm is a good

example of an algorithm with low bias and high variance. This trade-off can
easily be reversed by increasing the k value which in turn results in
increasing the number of neighbours. This, in turn, results in increasing the
bias and reducing the variance.

Another example can be the algorithm of a support vector machine. This

algorithm also has a high variance and obviously, a low bias and we can
reverse the trade-off by increasing the value of parameter C. Thus,
increasing the C parameter increases the bias and decreases the variance.

So, the trade-off is simple. If we increase the bias, the variance will decrease
and vice versa.

Q 16. Define the confusion matrix?

Ans: It is a matrix that has 2 rows and 2 columns. It has 4 outputs that a
binary classifier provides to it. It is used to derive various measures like
specificity, error rate, accuracy, precision, sensitivity, and recall.

©Topperworld
 ©Topperworld

The test data set should contain the correct and predicted labels. The labels
depend upon the performance. For instance, the predicted labels are the
same if the binary classifier performs perfectly. Also, they match the part of
observed labels in real-world scenarios. The four outcomes shown above in
the confusion matrix mean the following:

1) True Positive: This means that the positive prediction is correct.

2) False Positive: This means that the positive prediction is incorrect.
3) True Negative: This means that the negative prediction is correct.
4) False Negative: This means that the negative prediction is incorrect.

The formulas for calculating basic measures that comes from the confusion
matrix are:

1. Error rate: (FP + FN)/(P + N)

2. Accuracy: (TP + TN)/(P + N)
3. Sensitivity = TP/P
4. Specificity = TN/N
5. Precision = TP/(TP + FP)
6. F-Score = (1 + b)(PREC.REC)/(b2 PREC + REC) Here, b is mostly 0.5 or 1
or 2.

In these formulas:

FP = false positive
FN = false negative
TP = true positive
RN = true negative

Also,

Sensitivity is the measure of the True Positive Rate. It is also called recall.
Specificity is the measure of the true negative rate.
Precision is the measure of a positive predicted value.
F-score is the harmonic mean of precision and recall.

©Topperworld
 ©Topperworld

Q 17. What is logistic regression? State an example where you have

recently used logistic regression.

Ans: Logistic Regression is also known as the logit model. It is a technique to

predict the binary outcome from a linear combination of variables (called the
predictor variables).

For example, let us say that we want to predict the outcome of elections for
a particular political leader. So, we want to find out whether this leader is
going to win the election or not. So, the result is binary i.e. win (1) or loss (0).
However, the input is a combination of linear variables like the money spent
on advertising, the past work done by the leader and the party, etc.

Q 18. What is Linear Regression? What are some of the major

drawbacks of the linear model?

Ans: Linear regression is a technique in which the score of a variable Y is

predicted using the score of a predictor variable X. Y is called the criterion
variable. Some of the drawbacks of Linear Regression are as follows:

⚫ The assumption of linearity of errors is a major drawback.

⚫ It cannot be used for binary outcomes. We have Logistic Regression
for that.
⚫ Overfitting problems are there that can’t be solved.

©Topperworld
 ©Topperworld

Q 19. What is a random forest? Explain it’s working.

Ans: Classification is very important in machine learning. It is very important

to know to which class does an observation belongs. Hence, we have various
classification algorithms in machine learning like logistic regression, support
vector machine, decision trees, Naive Bayes classifier, etc.

One such classification technique that is near the top of the classification
hierarchy is the random forest classifier.

So, firstly we need to understand a decision tree before we can understand

the random forest classifier and its works. So, let us say that we have a
string as given below:

So, we have the string with 5 ones and 4 zeroes and we want to classify the
characters of this string using their features.

These features are colour (red or green in this case) and whether the
observation (i.e. character) is underlined or not. Now, let us say that we are
only interested in red and underlined observations. S

o, the decision tree would look something like this:

©Topperworld
So, we started with the colour first as we are only interested in the red
observations and we separated the red and the green-coloured characters.
After that, the “No” branch i.e. the branch that had all the green coloured
characters was not expanded further as we want only red-underlined
characters. So, we expanded the “Yes” branch and we again got a “Yes”
and a “No” branch based on the fact whether the characters were
underlined or not.

So, this is how we draw a typical decision tree. However, the data in real life
is not this clean but this was just to give an idea about the working of the
decision trees.

➢ Random Forest

It consists of a large number of decision trees that operate as an ensemble.

Basically, each tree in the forest gives a class prediction and the one with the
maximum number of votes becomes the prediction of our model. For
instance, in the example shown below, 4 decision trees predict 1, and 2
predict 0. Hence, prediction 1 will be considered.

The underlying principle of a random forest is that several weak learners

combine to form a keen learner. The steps to build a random forest are as
follows:

⚫ Build several decision trees on the samples of data and record their
predictions.

©Topperworld
 ⚫ Each time a split is considered for a tree, choose a random sample of
mm predictors as the split candidates out of all the pp predictors. This
happens to every tree in the random forest.
⚫ Apply the rule of thumb i.e. at each split m = p√m = p.
⚫ Apply the predictions to the majority rule.

Q 20. In a time interval of 15-minutes, the probability that you may

see a shooting star or a bunch of them is 0.2. What is the percentage
chance of you seeing at least one star shooting from the sky if you
are under it for about an hour?

Ans: Let us say that Prob is the probability that we may see a minimum of
one shooting star in 15 minutes.

So, Prob = 0.2

Now, the probability that we may not see any shooting star in the time
duration of 15 minutes is = 1 - Prob

1-0.2 = 0.8

The probability that we may not see any shooting star for an hour is:

= (1-Prob)(1-Prob)(1-Prob)*(1-Prob)
= 0.8 * 0.8 * 0.8 * 0.8 = (0.8)⁴
≈ 0.40

So, the probability that we will see one shooting star in the time interval of
an hour is = 1-0.4 = 0.6

So, there are approximately 60% chances that we may see a shooting star in
the time span of an hour.

©Topperworld
Q 21. What is deep learning? What is the difference between deep
learning and machine learning?

Ans: Deep learning is a paradigm of machine learning. In deep

learning, multiple layers of processing are involved in order to extract high
features from the data. The neural networks are designed in such a way that
they try to simulate the human brain.

Deep learning has shown incredible performance in recent years because of

the fact that it shows great analogy with the human brain.

The difference between machine learning and deep learning is that deep
learning is a paradigm or a part of machine learning that is inspired by the
structure and functions of the human brain called the artificial neural
networks.
©Topperworld

Q 22. What is a Gradient and Gradient Descent?

Ans:

➢ Gradient: Gradient is the measure of a property that how much the

output has changed with respect to a little change in the input. In
other words, we can say that it is a measure of change in the weights
with respect to the change in error.
➢ Gradient Descent: Gradient descent is a minimization algorithm that
minimizes the Activation function. Well, it can minimize any function
given to it but it is usually provided with the activation function only.

Gradient descent, as the name suggests means descent or a decrease

in something. The analogy of gradient descent is often taken as a
person climbing down a hill/mountain. The following is the equation
describing what gradient descent means:

©Topperworld
 So, if a person is climbing down the hill, the next position that the
climber has to come to is denoted by “b” in this equation. Then,
there is a minus sign because it denotes the minimization (as gradient
descent is a minimization algorithm). The Gamma is called a waiting
factor and the remaining term which is the Gradient term itself shows
the direction of the steepest descent.

Q23.How are the time series problems different from other

regression problems?

Ans:

⚫ Time series data can be thought of as an extension to linear regression

which uses terms like autocorrelation, movement of averages for
summarizing historical data of y-axis variables for predicting a better
future.
⚫ Forecasting and prediction is the main goal of time series problems where
accurate predictions can be made but sometimes the underlying reasons
might not be known.
⚫ Having Time in the problem does not necessarily mean it becomes a time
series problem. There should be a relationship between target and time
for a problem to become a time series problem.
⚫ The observations close to one another in time are expected to be similar to
the ones far away which provide accountability for seasonality. For
instance, today’s weather would be similar to tomorrow’s weather but
not similar to weather from 4 months from today. Hence, weather
prediction based on past data becomes a time series problem.

©Topperworld
 ©Topperworld

Q 24. What are RMSE and MSE in a linear regression model?

Ans:

➢ RMSE: RMSE stands for Root Mean Square Error. In a linear regression
model, RMSE is used to test the performance of the machine learning
model. It is used to evaluate the data spread around the line of
best fit. So, in simple words, it is used to measure the deviation of the
residuals.

RMSE is calculated using the formula:

⚫ Yi is the actual value of the output variable.

⚫ Y(Cap) is the predicted value and,
⚫ N is the number of data points.

➢ MSE: Mean Squared Error is used to find how close is the line to the
actual data. So, we make the difference in the distance of the data
points from the line and the difference is squared. This is done for all
the data points and the submission of the squared difference divided
by the total number of data points gives us the Mean Squared Error
(MSE).

So, if we are taking the squared difference of N data points and

dividing the sum by N, what does it mean? Yes, it represents the
average of the squared difference of a data point from the line i.e. the
average of the squared difference between the actual and the
predicted values. The formula for finding MSE is given below:

©Topperworld
 ⚫ Yi is the actual value of the output variable (the ith data
point)
⚫ Y(cap) is the predicted value and,
⚫ N is the total number of data points.

So, RMSE is the square root of MSE.

Q 25. What are Support Vectors in SVM (Support Vector Machine)?

In the above diagram, we can see that the thin lines mark the distance from
the classifier to the closest data points (darkened data points). These are
called support vectors. So, we can define the support vectors as the data

©Topperworld
 ©Topperworld

points or vectors that are nearest (closest) to the hyperplane. They affect
the position of the hyperplane. Since they support the hyperplane, they are
known as support vectors.

Q 26. So, you have done some projects in machine learning and data
science and we see you are a bit experienced in the field. Let’s say
your laptop’s RAM is only 4GB and you want to train your model on
10GB data set.

What will you do? Have you experienced such an issue before?

Ans: In such types of questions, we first need to ask what ML model we

have to train. After that, it depends on whether we have to train a model
based on Neural Networks or SVM.

The steps for Neural Networks are given below:

1. The Numpy array can be used to load the entire data. It will never store
the entire data, rather just create a mapping of the data.
2. Now, in order to get some desired data, pass the index into the NumPy
Array.
3. This data can be used to pass as an input to the neural network
maintaining a small batch size.

The steps for SVM are given below:

1. For SVM, small data sets can be obtained. This can be done by dividing
the big data set.
2. The subset of the data set can be obtained as an input if using the
partial fit function.
3. Repeat the step of using the partial fit method for other subsets as
well.

Now, you may describe the situation if you have faced such an issue in your
projects or working in machine learning/ data science.

©Topperworld
Q 27. Explain Neural Network Fundamentals.

Ans: In the human brain, different neurons are present. These neurons
combine and perform various tasks. The Neural Network in deep learning
tries to imitate human brain neurons. The neural network learns the patterns
from the data and uses the knowledge that it gains from various patterns to
predict the output for new data, without any human assistance.

A perceptron is the simplest neural network that contains a single neuron

that performs 2 functions. The first function is to perform the weighted sum
of all the inputs and the second is an activation function.

There are some other neural networks that are more complicated. Such
networks consist of the following three layers:

) Input Layer: The neural network has the input layer to receive the
input.
) Hidden Layer: There can be multiple hidden layers between the input
layer and the output layer. The initially hidden layers are used for
detecting the low-level patterns whereas the further layers are
responsible for combining output from previous layers to find more
patterns.
) Output Layer: This layer outputs the prediction.

Q 28. What is Generative Adversarial Network?

Ans: This approach can be understood with the famous example of the wine
seller. Let us say that there is a wine seller who has his own shop. This wine
seller purchases wine from the dealers who sell him the wine at a low cost so
that he can sell the wine at a high cost to the customers.

Now, let us say that the dealers whom he is purchasing the wine from, are
selling him fake wine. They do this as the fake wine costs way less than the

©Topperworld
original wine and the fake and the real wine are indistinguishable to a normal
consumer (customer in this case).

The shop owner has some friends who are wine experts and he sends his
wine to them every time before keeping the stock for sale in his shop. So, his
friends, the wine experts, give him feedback that the wine is probably fake.
Since the wine seller has been purchasing the wine for a long time from the
same dealers, he wants to make sure that their feedback is right before he
complains to the dealers about it. Now, let us say that the dealers also have
got a tip from somewhere that the wine seller is suspicious of them.

So, in this situation, the dealers will try their best to sell the fake wine
whereas the wine seller will try his best to identify the fake wine. Let us see
this with the help of a diagram shown below:

From the image above, it is clear that a noise vector is entering the generator
(dealer) and he generates the fake wine and the discriminator has to
distinguish between the fake wine and real wine. This is a Generative
Adversarial Network (GAN).

In a GAN, there are 2 main components viz. Generator and Discrminator. So,
the generator is a CNN that keeps producing images and the discriminator
tries to identify the real images from the fake ones.

©Topperworld
 ©Topperworld

Q 29. What is a computational graph?

Ans: A computational graph is also known as a “Dataflow Graph”.

Everything in the famous deep learning library TensorFlow is based on the
computational graph. The computational graph in Tensorflow has a network
of nodes where each node operates. The nodes of this graph represent
operations and the edges represent tensors.

Q 30. What are auto-encoders?

Ans: Auto-encoders are learning networks. They transform inputs into

outputs with minimum possible errors. So, basically, this means that the
output that we want should be almost equal to or as close as to input as
follows.

Multiple layers are added between the input and the output layer and the
layers that are in between the input and the output layer are smaller than
the input layer. It received unlabelled input. This input is encoded to
reconstruct the input later.

©Topperworld
 ABOUT US

At TopperWorld, we are on a mission to empower college students with the

knowledge, tools, and resources they need to succeed in their academic
journey and beyond.

➢ Our Vision

❖ Our vision is to create a world where every college student can easily
access high-quality educational content, connect with peers, and achieve
their academic goals.
❖ We believe that education should be accessible, affordable, and engaging,
and that's exactly what we strive to offer through our platform.

➢ Unleash Your Potential

❖ In an ever-evolving world, the pursuit of knowledge is essential.

TopperWorld serves as your virtual campus, where you can explore a
diverse array of online resources tailored to your specific college
curriculum.
❖ Whether you're studying science, arts, engineering, or any other discipline,
we've got you covered.
❖ Our platform hosts a vast library of e-books, quizzes, and interactive
study tools to ensure you have the best resources at your fingertips.

➢ The TopperWorld Community

❖ Education is not just about textbooks and lectures; it's also about forming
connections and growing together.

©Topperworld
❖ TopperWorld encourages you to engage with your fellow students, ask
questions, and share your knowledge.
❖ We believe that collaborative learning is the key to academic success.

➢ Start Your Journey with TopperWorld

❖ Your journey to becoming a top-performing college student begins with

TopperWorld.
❖ Join us today and experience a world of endless learning possibilities.
❖ Together, we'll help you reach your full academic potential and pave the
way for a brighter future.
❖ Join us on this exciting journey, and let's make academic success a reality
for every college student.

©Topperworld
“Unlock Your
Potential”
With- Topper World

Explore More

topperworld.in

DSA Tutorial C Tutorial C++ Tutorial

Java Tutorial Python Tutorial

Follow Us On
E-mail
[email protected]