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McKinsey Problem Solving Solvin g Test - Example Test Question #1 by Vict V ictor or Cheng by Victor Cheng Like
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One of the skills that's being tested during a case
interview is something I call data sufficiency. Basically, Basically, you have a bunch of data and the question question is do you have ENOUG ENO UGH H data to make a particular conclusi particular conclusion. on. This is certain certainly ly something that is tested during a live, in-person, face-to-face case interview. It is also a skill skill that is often tested in a variety of formats including written tests before the first in-person case interview question interview question is is asked. asked. An example example of this is the Mc McKinsey Kinsey Problem Solving Test which Test which evaluates your data sufficiency skills (among others). others). In parts of of the McKinsey McKinsey Problem Solving Test, you are given a bunch of data and some possible conclusions. conclusions. Your job is to figure out which conclusions are or are NOT supported by the facts presented. Now this test is not intended to torture you (though I know some people might argue with me on this one). It turns out this is a very important skill once you're on the job as a management consultant, consultant, especially as a first year analyst or associate. In addition to a live case interview, the McKinsey Problem Solving Test, other firms have used similar
tests (Monitor has done this from time to time) OR have given an in-person case interview where the candidate is presented with a written document consisting of various facts, figures and other data… and the data sufficiency skill is tested verbally. These are all variations of the same thing. Given a set of data, will you determine the correct, logical, and factually supported conclusion every time? So bottom line, this skill is pretty important and based on the many emails I've been receiving from aspiring consultants around the world, it seems many people are having a difficult time figuring out how to practice these skill. So just for kicks, I thought I'd give you an actual data sufficiency type question that a McKinsey Partner in the Los Angeles office asked me when I interviewed there for my final round several years ago. Before I give you the question (which is posted on my blog), I strongly recommend that you read the question and then immediately hit the "post comment" button to post your answer on my blog. (You can do so with just your first name or initials if you want to be a anonymous) The key is to post your answer WITHOUT seeing other people's answers! (otherwise it sort of defeats the purpose of practicing, and there really are very few opportunities to practice this skill.). I will be "grading" all the answers posted in a day or two. Here's the question: Volvo recently ran an advertisement that said: Volvo - The Safest Car in the United States*
* New US government report shows that fewer people die in a Volvo than in any other car brand in America (Note: A prior version of this blog post indicated that Volvo was the Safest Car in the World. My intention was to write U.S., so some of the answers you see may reflect this.) Assess the validity of this statement, you have 3 - 5 minutes to do so. You are NOT permitted to ask any clarifying questions. Please be SPECIFIC in your answers. Go! Click Here to Post Your Response (Remember: Don't cheat by looking at everyone else's response first, look at them AFTER you post your response.) Scroll down to see the hundreds of answers submitted by readers of my blog. To see my answer to this question (ideally AFTER you try to answer the question yourself FIRST), click here: McKinsey Problem Solving Test - Example 1 Answers. Additional Resources If you found this post useful, I suggest becoming a registered member (it's free) to get access to the
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R October 31, 2013 at 2:27 pm This statement assumes that safety is only compromised when the accident is fatal to the driver and passengers. Severe injuries as well as light accidents are not taken into account. Thus it could simply be playing on the meaning of "safe". There is no quantitative data shown in the statement to illustrate the point clearly to the reader. It does not explore safety in terms of a car's strength, ability to crumple and absorb shock when colliding, i.e. results from crash tests. Reply Knk October 31, 2013 at 7:39 pm False. Having fewer number of people dying in Volvo cars may not mean its the safest. There are other factors such as drivers' profile, where they drive and the add-ons they may have in the car to protect them. Reply Marina November 2, 2013 at 7:24 am The U.S. government's report does not prove the causal link that is advertised by Volvo as Volvo being the safest car in the U.S. because there might be other reasons for why fewer people die in a Volvo: For example it is possible that less people drive a Volvo and therefore there are also less accidents which involve al Volvo. We would need to look at relative instead of absolute numbers in order to make a more accurate statement. It could also be that Volvo cars are more sold in rural areas where less accidents happen in general. Consequently, Volvo's conclusion cannot be drawn from the report. Reply
Eric November 2, 2013 at 7:39 am Although the number of Volvo-related deaths is an important piece of information to have, I feel that the statement might be misleading because it is based on a single value. Many more factors must be accounted for when considering whether or not a a car can be deemed the “safest”: - number of cars in circulation - frequency of use of said cars / number of trips - age of cars - number of accidents - number of casualties - number of fatalities - NCAP (or rather the American equivalent... sorry, I'm from Europe and only familiar with the European organization) test results - history of car maintenance - driver experience And many more other values, if given more time Reply VV November 2, 2013 at 7:50 am There are a few factors that signal that Volvo indeed is the safest car on the US market. Such as: It's made in Sweden, one of the most prosperous counties in Europe and the world, where high quality standads are carefully looked after. Volvo ensures that it's cars are build to lastconstructed from scratch with safety in mind and are branded as more of family cars than sports cars. The price range of the Volvos ( which is close to Audi's and BMW's) and the fact that it's an imported brand suggest that these vehicles won't be massively available on the market. The people who are likely to and can buy the car, would be mostly upper middle class, possibly with family and children and are prone to be risk-averse on the road. These individuals would drive short distances and are likely to value their time and to use plane when travelling within in the county. Consequently, the amortization of the car is minimized as well as the risk of failure on the road. But really, one must examine the statistics and see whether they confirm the statement. Reply sfm November 2, 2013 at 7:53 am The above statement is not valid as we do not have enough info as to how many volvos are running on US streets vs other car brands. Reply Juan Sarmiento November 2, 2013 at 12:23 pm Volvo’s statement is not valid and would require further analysis to probe it accurate, the facts presented are not enough to conclude that Volvo is the safest car in the US. Here are key points that would be important to understand to come to a more accurate conclusion: - What is the numbers of accidents involving Volvo cars and how does it compared to other
brands? Of these accidents what percentage of them resulted in fatalities? Volvo could have the least number of deaths but as a percentage of deaths per accident this may not be lower among other card brands. - What is the number of Volvo cars in the US compared to other brands? Fewer number of Volvo cars in the US will lead to fewer number accidents but not necessarily make them the safest car. - What is the most predominant age group of people that drive Volvo cars, this age group could be one that is less likely to be involved in accidents bringing to fewer changes of being involved in a fatal accident. Understanding the points above will help support or reject Volvo’s statement that their cars are the safest in the US. JC Reply Sla gl November 2, 2013 at 1:37 pm This U.S report just shows that fewer people die in a volve than any other car in u.s. But does it necessarily show volve is safe ? Of course not. We should how many people have volvos and how many ones have the others? This may be because there there are very few volves. We should ask that in this report which class-cars were compared to each other ? (Whether all of the cars were in the same class or not) Reply VP November 3, 2013 at 6:35 am Maybe Volvo has better safety features than other cars but this does not mean that people don't die from their injuries later at the hospital. There isn't a figure telling us how big or which dataset was used nor what other car companies have been compared hence we don't know whether this statement falls only in a small segment of a report. Also, whether the car size/type we looking at is only within a certain category of cars that Volvo trumps its competitors. Reply Ash I November 3, 2013 at 8:12 am I would like to see the stats of all the cars by brand involved in fatal car accidents over the last 5 to 10 years in the United States of American. I would like a further concentration on the fatalities involving the brand Volvo verses other brands. How many passengers per car, lastly out of the accidents how may people died after the accident as a result of their injuries? Reply OV November 3, 2013 at 6:48 pm Fewer people dying in a Volvo does not make a Volvo the safest car in the US. This could just be a factor of very few people owning and driving volvos. The incidence rate of death from a car accident may be exactly the same for a Volvo or a Ford, however, if there there are less Volvos circulating than Fords, there will logically be a lower volume of deaths in a Volvo.
Volvo - The Safest Car in the United States* * New US government report shows that fewer people die in a Volvo than in any other car brand in America Reply B. November 4, 2013 at 6:33 am The conclusion drawn (that Volvo is the safest car in the US) is not valid. First, we don`t have a clear definition of safety: Does it mean not getting into an accident in the first place, merely surviving an accident in any condition, including severly injured, or does it mean surviving an accident unscathed? Second, we are lacking critical information to draw conclusions about the safety of Volvo cars: How many people own a Volvo compared to other car brand? How often do people drive a Volvo compared to other car brands? How often are Volvos involved in accidents compared to other cars? How often do mechanical problems of a Volvo (for instance, the breaks not functioning) cause an accident, compared to other brands? What are the survival chances inside a Volvo compared to other brands? Reply Romer November 4, 2013 at 8:56 am The conclusion is not supported by data to prove that Volvo is the safest car in the US. Here are the information that I will need to jump into this conclusion: 1. Statistics of Accident per Car Maker, Model and year to include categorization of the intensity of accident (no-injury, injury needing hospitalization, death) and the force of impact (function of speed and weight) 2. Number of Cars produced and sold per Car Maker, Model and year. To include the demographics of the drivers. It is critical that there is an apple to apple comparison per car maker, per model per year in terms of accidents. I would like to see the ratio of accidents per total new car sold , per make /model in the market. The year to year comparison is critical to see the consistency of safety features in the car. I would also categorized the type of accident to further analyze the effectiveness of the safety feature by looking at the number of accidents and segmenting it to the no. of injury that is minor (not needing hospitalization), severe (needing hospitalization) and death. I will correlate this to the assessed intensity of impact. I will also further segment the drivers based on age, sex and education level. Younger people (teens) are statistically aggressive and the data should be adjusted based on risk given the spread of the driver population based on age. I will look at the risk factor for sex and education level if this will pose the same issue as age and will consider this in the analysis if needed. This is necessary for the analysis of the preventive collision effectiveness of the car. To summarize this, two things are necessary for the analysis: 1. Preventive Safety Measure analysis adjusted based on risk 2. Post Collision assessment of the Safety Measure based on severity of injury relative to impact. 3. #1 and #2 should be done per Car Maker, Per Make and Model.
The ads should be specific to the make and model of the car as concluded by the analysis after taking into consideration the risk factors of the users and the occurence per make/model ratio. The severity of the accident relative to force of impact should be considered as part of deciding on what has the most effective safety features. Reply Chang November 4, 2013 at 11:55 am First, i would confirm validity of the quote by looking into who or what units are responsible for New US report? Is it trustworthy, or endorsed by neutral third party? If so, we can move to second part. Find out definition of car safety and benchmark to set up fair standard to testify validity of the quote ,ex: same series of cars or average standard? Reply L November 4, 2013 at 2:04 pm First of all, 'safety' is defined as 'no/few deaths' in this advertisement. Which is of course not entirely true. People can get (seriously) injured in a car accident and still survive. Second, this statement does not tell us anything about the relative amount of deaths. If there is one volvo in the US and nobody ever died in it, then still the statement is true but does not say a lot about the safety of the car. Besides, the demography also matters. Young people tend to drive less save than older people. So it would be better to express the safety of the car by the amount of accidents per mile driven in a volvo per age group. Reply Maros Cincura November 5, 2013 at 4:20 am The statement says about how many people die in a Volvo car compared to the other car brands absolutely. However, the proportion of Americans driving Volvo is not perfectly the same, than proportion of Americans driving other car brand. I would say, that there are way less people driving Volvo in the US, than another car. If there are few people driving Volvo, even though if they would all have died, it is still way less people in ABSOLUT measures, than people dying in Ford. Weighted average rate of people dying in a particular car brand with car brand distribution rate would be relevant information in this context. Reply AF November 5, 2013 at 4:58 am You can't conclude that Volvo is the safest car in the US based on the premise because its only state the number and not the percentage. If Volvo only sells one car a year in the US then only very few people could get killed in a Volvo. Also, safety doesn't automatically equal law death rate and if people get seriously injured but stay alive it still can be an unsafe car. Reply Agrippa Sulla November 5, 2013 at 8:13 am Disclaimer does not provide enough evidence to support claim for following reasons: a) Is the fatality number adjusted for car popularity? b) Has avg car usage per person been taken into account?
c) Have the stats been controlled for age and gender? d) Injury statistics not mentioned. Reply Nate November 5, 2013 at 8:34 pm Volvo's claim of having the least number of people die in their cars may simply be because Volvo has significantly fewer cars on the road. It may also be because Volvo cars carry less people than other cars. Therefore, what I would really want to know is the number of accidents resulting in a death in a Volvo for each Volvo car that is on the road. Reply JD November 5, 2013 at 8:41 pm Statement seems invalid because Volvo could be just 1% of all cars in the US, hence carries a tiny fraction of the population and therefore has the least number of people in an accident. Reply Kad November 6, 2013 at 8:43 pm First, people die in Volvo as they die in any other car. In this regard, Volvo is as dangerous as any other car. Second we don't have enough data to assess the number if volvo in circulation compared to other brands. We can assume Volvo is not the most famous brand, so maybe the number is just little. Finally, with deep analysis it may be possible Volvo is a car driven by people of a certain age (oldies) who are more cautious than the others, young and adults. Reply Sunil November 7, 2013 at 2:53 am The available information is insufficient to conclusively determine the validity of this statement. The first point is to determine how one 'measures' safety. Is the number of deaths occuring the only valid measure? How about the nos. of accidents caused by the cars' mechanical or operating failures? However, if the no. of people dying is accepted as the prime measure of safety, then it would make sense to look at the proportion of people driving Volvos, who died in such accidents rather than the absolute nos. of deaths. Reply Previous Comments
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