Kill Your Next Machine Learning & Data Science Interview

Harvard Business Review referred to data scientist as the “Sexiest Job of the 21st Century.” Glassdoor placed it #1 on the 25 Best Jobs in America list. According to IBM, demand for this role will soar 28 percent by 2020. It should come as no surprise that in the new era of big data and machine learning, data scientists are becoming rock stars. Companies that are able to leverage massive amounts of data to improve the way they serve customers, build products, and run their operations will be positioned to thrive in this economy.

And if you’re moving down the path to becoming a data scientist, you must be prepared to impress prospective employers with your knowledge. And to do that you must be able to crack your next data science interview in one go! We have clubbed a list of the most popular data science interview questions you can expect in your next interview!

Analytics Interview Q&A | Time Series | ARIMA Models

41. What is the goal of A/B Testing?

This is statistical hypothesis testing for randomized experiments with two variables, A and B. The objective of A/B testing is to detect any changes to a web page to maximize or increase the outcome of a strategy.

56. What is the difference between a box plot and a histogram?

The frequency of a certain feature’s values is denoted visually by both box plots

Boxplots are more often used in comparing several datasets and compared to histograms, take less space and contain fewer details. Histograms are used to know and understand the probability distribution underlying a dataset.

The diagram above denotes a boxplot of a dataset.

24. You are given a dataset on cancer detection. You have built a classification model and achieved an accuracy of 96 percent. Why shouldn’t you be happy with your model performance? What can you do about it?

Cancer detection results in imbalanced data. In an imbalanced dataset, accuracy should not be based as a measure of performance. It is important to focus on the remaining four percent, which represents the patients who were wrongly diagnosed. Early diagnosis is crucial when it comes to cancer detection, and can greatly improve a patients prognosis.

Hence, to evaluate model performance, we should use Sensitivity (True Positive Rate), Specificity (True Negative Rate), F measure to determine the class wise performance of the classifier.

time series interview questions

MA model is considered in the following situation, If the autocorrelation function (ACF) of the differenced series displays a sharp cutoff and/or the lag-1 autocorrelation is negative–i.e., if the series appears slightly “overdifferenced”–then consider adding an MA term to the model. The lag beyond which the ACF cuts off is the indicated number of MA terms.

Integrated: In ARIMA time series analysis, integrated is denoted by d. Integration is the inverse of differencing. When d=0, it means the series is stationary and we do not need to take the difference of it. When d=1, it means that the series is not stationary and to make it stationary, we need to take the first difference. When d=2, it means that the series has been differenced twice. Usually, more than two time difference is not reliable.

Time series smoothing and filtering can be expressed in terms of local regression models. Polynomials and regression splines also provide important techniques for smoothing. CART based models do not provide an equation to superimpose on time series and thus cannot be used for smoothing. All the other techniques are well documented smoothing techniques.

Trend is defined as the ‘long term’ movement in a time series without calendar related and irregular effects, and is a reflection of the underlying level. It is the result of influences such as population growth, price inflation and general economic changes. The following graph depicts a series in which there is an obvious upward trend over time.

A total of 1094 people registered for this skill test. The test was designed to test you on the basic & advanced level of time series. If you are one of those who missed out on this skill test, here are the questions and solutions. You missed on the real time test, but can read this article to find out how many could have answered correctly.

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