Interview Questions And Answers 
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You are an employer. You have ten employees. Each month, each one of your ten employees gives you ten bags of gold. Each bag of gold has ten pieces of gold in it. Each piece of gold weighs one pound. One of your employees is cheating you by only putting nine pieces of gold in each of his ten bags of gold. You have a scale (not a balance, a scale), and you can only take one measurement from the scale, only one (1) reading.
How can you tell which of the ten employees is cheating you by using this scale and only taking one measurement?
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When your employees come to pay you at the end of the month, take one bag from employee number one’s pile and set it aside. Take two bags from employee number two’s pile and add it to the one from employee number one. Take three from employee three, four from employee four, etc…
Once you have now compiled a pile of bags, you should have 55 bags (one from one, two from two, etc). Set the whole pile (all 55 bags) on the scale and take a reading. If all the bags were honest, you would have 550 pounds on the scale.
If employee one is cheating you, then the reading would be 549, since you only have one bag from employee one. Likewise, if the measurement is 547, then 3 pounds are missing, and employee three is the thief.
I think we are given a scale not a balance. So we cant tell the exact weight of the bags. So how do we find out whether its 549, 547 etc.. ?
FYI, a scale means you can get the exact measurment. The balance mean you can only tell if it’s greater, equal, or less than whats on the other side.
Why do he need to weigh? Can’t he just count?
Ash
Take one bag out of ten bags from each employee.
take 1 coin from 1st employee bag
take 2 coins from 2nd employee bag..and soon until u take 10 coins out from 10th employee
So, the total must be 1+2+–10 = 55
if employee 1 cheats..then the count would be 54 and if employee 10 cheats..then the count would be 45..and soon
thanks,
naveen
Ash is right….
Why do the employer has to weigh them…just because one has access to a weigh, there is no need for one to weigh and find out if a bag has 9 or ten pieces. The scale would be in use if the corrupt employeer puts 10 pieces of gold of less wieght. The question would make sense then.
Mahesh
The question is “How can you tell which of the ten employees is cheating you by using this scale and only taking one measurement?”
It doesn’t matter if it’s easier to just open and count the bags, that isn’t the question. Saying the question is stupid b/c it’s not the fastest way to do it isn’t a good answer at an interview.
Hey guys,
i think u all r wrong
simply put one bag on one side and one on other. keep an putting one bag on one side and one on other simulataneously. Moment scale goes towards one side, the bag we just put the other side is faulty one.
(Take one bag from each).
And it will be one measurement only.
My assumption:- it is a balance
Answer goes like this:
take 1 bag from emp1, 2 from emp 2, 3 from emp 3 and so on ….
That makes total of 55 bags.
Total weight if all are good = 550 pounds.
Now weight these bags together. Subtract the sum from 540 and you get your mole.
eg:
if trator is No.2 his two bags will weigh: 18 pounds
which deducts 2 from the original sum….
Hence the answer….
he can take one reading. it was not metioned that one reading per day . it can be one reading of every 10 bag . he wil name the bags of every employee & then he will take the reading of first employee bags then 2nd and so on & the employee who is cheating , the bag of him will show the lowest reading on the scale
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