Sapient Interview questions

About the Company: Sapient

Sapient is a global consulting and marketing company which provides various services to clients such as Business, Marketing and Technology services. Sapient was founded on November 6, 1990 and headquartered in Boston, Massachusetts, United States. Sapient Operates in three division, which are SapientNitro, Sapient Global Market, and Sapient Government Services. SapientNitro deals with digital Marketing strategies, Sapient Global Market provides business and technology-based services to clients, and Sapient Government Services are the partners with government, health, and educational Organization and offers strategic, digital, and creative services. Sapient works with approximately more than 11,900 employees all over the world.

Key People:

• Founders: Jerry Greenberg and Stuart Moore
• CEO and Co-Chairman: Alan J. Herrick

Sapient Recruitment Process

The complete recruitment process of Sapient consists of three main rounds.

Candidates need to clear one round to go for the next, and so on.

The main rounds are:

1. First Round: Online Written Exam
2. Second Round: Technical Interview
3. Third Round: HR Interview

Academic Criteria

1. Percentage criteria for applying in Sapient is minimum of 6.5 CGPA or 60-65% throughout (Class X, XII, and Graduation).
2. Education gap must not be more than 1 year.
3. Candidate should be B.E. / B. Tech or MCA.

First Round: Written Round

Description: The first round consists of an online written exam which has four sections:

• Verbal Ability
• Quantitative Aptitude
• Technical aptitude
• Logical reasoning

The first round is a screening round where candidates are checked on the basis of their logical ability, quantitative ability, and basic technical concepts. This round has average difficulty level but requires a good speed.

See the topics in each section with marks and time allotted for that section:

Note: Written Paper pattern may vary from college to college for campus recruitment.

Verbal ability Questions:

1) Find the word for the following analogy

Probe: Wound :: Anemography:?

1. Rainfall
2. Force
3. Pressure
4. Humidity

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2) Find the antonym for the word “FLAGITIOUS”?

1. Vapid
2. Frivolous
3. Ignorant
4. Innocent

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3) Find the antonym for word “NADIR”?

1. Modernity
2. Liberty
3. Progress
4. Zenith

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4) What will be the Synonym for word “FORAY”?

1. Contest
2. Ranger
3. Maraud
4. Intuition

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5) Find the odd one out from the following:

1. Arc
2. Diagonal
3. Radius
4. Tangent
5. Diameter

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6) Sujit and Udit are twins brother, but they do not look_________

1. Alike
2. Different
3. Unique
4. Likely

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7) It’s very kind of you to ________ to speak at the lecture hall.

1. Comply
2. Concur
3. Accept
4. Agree

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8) Complete the sentence with appropriate phrase:

Rohan always stammers in public meetings, but his today’s speech_____________

1. Was not audible correctly
2. Was better than previous speech
3. Was fairly audible to everyone
4. Was very boring

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Quantitative Aptitude Questions

1) Two trains are running with the speed of 60 km/hr and 40 km/hr respectively in the same direction. The Fast moving train completely passes a man sitting in slower train in 9 sec. Find the length of the fast moving train.

1. 44m
2. 50m
3. 60m
4. 33m

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2) If log 27= 1.431, then what will be the value of log 9?

1. 0.854
2. 0.754
3. 0.654
4. 0.954

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3) The balls in a bag are numbered from 1 to 20 and mixed up. If one ball is drawn out randomly then what is the probability that the drawn ball has a number, which is a multiple of 3 or 5?

1. 1/2
2. 1/3
3. 9/20
4. 7/20

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4) In how many different ways the letter of words OPTICAL can be arranged so that all the consonants come together?

1. 720
2. 576
3. 920
4. 825

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5) To complete a piece of work A takes twice the time of B and thrice the time of C. If all working together can finish the same work in 8 days, then how many days are required to finish the work by B alone?

1. 48 days
2. 24 days
3. 16 days
4. 40 days

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6) If log 2= 0.30103, then what will be the number of digits in 2^64?

1. 20
2. 21
3. 18
4. 19

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7) Rahul purchased 12 dozens of toys at the rate of Rs.300 per dozen. He sold each of toys at the rate of Rs.29. What is his percentage profit?

1. 18%
2. 15%
3. 16%
4. 13.5%

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8) In how many ways can letter of word CORPORATION can be arranged so that all vowels always come together?

1. 50400
2. 2880
3. 5760
4. None of the Above

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9) Find the smallest number which leaves a remainder of 2, when divided by 3, 4, 5, and 6?

1. 128
2. 56
3. 62
4. 32

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10) A running train passes a pole in 15 seconds and a platform of 100 m long in 25 seconds. Find the length of the train.

1. 150 m
2. 50 m
3. 200m
4. Insufficient data

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Logical Reasoning Questions

1) If in a coding language A=1 and FAT = 27, then ACT =?

1. 24
2. 25
3. 20
4. 23

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2) Pointing towards a girl, Rahul said, “She is the only daughter of my grandfather’s only child,” then how that girl is related to Rahul?

1. Sister
2. Niece
3. Daughter
4. Insufficient Data

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3) Statement:

People who speak too much about corruption at every place are those who have taken it somewhere.

Conclusion:

I. It is easier for those to speak about corruption, who have done it.
II. Nowadays, people have a double standard.

1. Only I conclusion follows
2. Neither conclusion I nor II follows
3. Both I and II conclusion follows.
4. Only II conclusion follows

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4) Arrange the following words in a significant order

1. Recommendation
2. Arrival
3. Introduction
4. Discussion
5. Presentation

1. 3,5,1,4,2
2. 5,3,2,4,1
3. 2,5,4,3,1
4. 2,3,5,4,1

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5) Statement:

I. All roads are park
II. Some parks are mall

Conclusion:

I. All malls are park
II. All malls are roads
III. Some roads are mall
IV. No road is a mall

1. Only I follows
2. Only II follows
3. Only III and IV follow
4. None follows

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6) What is Shubham’s birthday?

I. Shubham’s father was born on 25^th April, 1965.
II. Shubham is 25 years younger than his mother.

1. If the Statement I alone is not sufficient to answer the question
2. If the data in statement II alone is not sufficient to answer the question
3. If either statement I or II alone is sufficient to answer the question.
4. If, data in both the statement together are not sufficient to answer the question.

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7) Find the missing number in the series.

1, 2, 6, 24, ?, 720.

1. 104
2. 108
3. 120
4. 100

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8) Arrange the following words in a significant order:

1. Elephant
2. Tiger
3. Cat
4. Whale
5. Mosquito

1. 2,4,5,1,3
2. 1,3,5,4,2
3. 5,3,2,1,4
4. 2,3,5,4,1

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9) Find the missing number in the series.

5760, 960, ?, 48, 16, 8.

1. 192
2. 120
3. 160
4. 240

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10) PLAY is related to ACTOR, so CONCERT is connected to?

1. Symphony
2. Musician
3. Piano
4. Percussion

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Technical Aptitude Questions:

1) An assembler converts an assembly code to machine language code:

1. Before the computer can execute the code
2. After the computer can execute the code
3. Between the execution
4. All of the above

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2) Which is not a derived data type from below options:

1. Array types
2. Enum Types
3. Pointers Types
4. Union Types
5. Structure types

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3) Find the output for the following program:

function fun(){  int a =1;   switch (a){  case 1 : print "5";   case 2 : print "6";  case 3 : print "7";  }   

1. 5
2. 6 7
3. 5 6 7
4. Nothing will print.

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4) How to calculate the square of a variable ‘x’ in C?

1. Sqr(x)
2. power(x,2)
3. power(2,x)
4. pow(x,2)

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5) The default parameter passing technique is

1. Call by reference
2. Call by value
3. Call by value result
4. None of the above

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6) Choose the correct option about bipartite Graph

1. n ^ log n
2. n edges
3. a cycle of odd length
4. no cycle of odd length

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7) Which of following traversal of Binary search tree give the output values in sorted order?

1. Post-order
2. In order
3. Pre-order
4. None of the above

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8) The retrieval of items in the stack is which type of operation?

1. retrieval
2. access
3. push
4. pop

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9) If new data needs to be inserted into data-structure, but there is no more space then this situation is called as:

1. Memory full
2. OverLeak
3. Memory Leak
4. Overflow

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10) Binary search can have maximum comparisons of ________?

1. log(n)+1
2. 2*log n
3. n
4. (n+1)/2

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Second Round: Technical Interview Round

The second round of Sapient recruitment process is a technical interview. In this round, candidates are asked questions to check their technical skills. The interview questions in this round can be from C, C++, Data Structure, Java OOPs Concepts, etc.

1) Differentiate between for loop and while loop in C?

In C language, both ‘for’ loop and ‘while’ loop are used to repeatedly executing a set of instructions.

The main differences between both the loops are given below:

2) Define Null pointer and where can we use it?

In reference to the computer memory, a Null pointer is a pointer which points to an empty location. Or Null pointer is a pointer which points to nothing.

Following are the primary uses of the NULL pointer in C language:

• We mostly use a Null pointer to show the end of memory search.
• We can pass a NULL pointer as a function argument when we don?t want to pass a valid memory address.

3) What is static and dynamic binding?

Binding is a process of associating a method call with method definition.

The Binding in Java is of two types:

• Static Binding
• Dynamic Binding

Static Binding: If the type of object can be determined at compile-time by compiler then it is known as static binding.

Dynamic Binding: If the type of object can be determined at runtime by compiler then it is called as dynamic binding.

4) Explain polymorphism in Java?

Polymorphism in Java is one of the OOPs concepts, which defines that an action can be performed in different ways. In Java, Polymorphism enables a method or object to be used in various forms.

Polymorphism is of two types:

• Compile-time polymorphism
• Runtime polymorphism

We can achieve polymorphism in Java by method overloading and method overriding.

5) What are the various types of Polymorphism?

Polymorphism in Java is of two types:

• Static polymorphism
• Dynamic polymorphism

Static Polymorphism: Static polymorphism is also termed as compile-time polymorphism because static polymorphism can be resolved at compile time. We can achieve static polymorphism through method overloading. Which means in a class there are more than one method which has the same name but different parameter, or return type or the number of parameters.

Dynamic Polymorphism: Dynamic polymorphism is also known as dynamic method dispatch or runtime polymorphism. Dynamic polymorphism is a process in which call to an overridden method can be resolved at runtime instead of compile time, hence it is also known as late binding. In dynamic polymorphism, an overridden method is called through the reference variable of the superclass.

6) Differentiate between malloc () and calloc () function?

The malloc() and calloc(), both functions are used for dynamic memory allocation in C language but there are some differences between them:

7) Write a program to swap two numbers without using any third variable?

Output:

Before Swapping: a= 30, b= 20   After Swapping: a = 20, b = 30  

8) Differentiate between Set and List?

The Set and List, both are the interfaces which extend the Collection interface.

The primary differences between Set and List are given below:

9) What is copy constructor and assignment operator?

Copy Constructor: Copy constructor is a constructor which creates an object by initializing it with a previously created object of same class.

It is called as a copy constructor because it has the same name as class name and it creates a copy of the previously created object.

Syntax

Assignment Operator: Assignment operator is an operator which is called when an already initialized object is assigned a new value from another previously created object.

Syntax

10) What do you understand by Data Definition Language in SQL?

The SQL is a database language, by which we can perform various operations on an already created database. We can also create a new database with the help of various commands. These commands are categorized into four ways, one of them is DDL, which is termed as data definition language.

DDL contains such commands which are used for defining the database schema. It deals with the description of database schema and specifies the way of putting data in the database.

Following are some commands used by DDL:

• CREATE: It is used for the creation of a database or its object.
• ALTER: It is used to change the structure of the existing database.
• DROP: It is used to drop/delete objects from the database.
• TRUNCATE: It is used for removing all records, including all spaces, from a table.
• COMMENT: It is used to add comments.
• RENAME: It is used to rename an object from the database.

11) What do you understand by TRUNC and ROUND function?

TRUNC() function: The TRUNC() function is used to truncate or delete the certain number right to the decimal without rounding off.

Syntax

Where, n = return a truncated number

decimal_number= nth of decimal place to truncated.

Example

ROUND () function: The ROUND() function is used to round-off any input value to its nearest integer value or the defined number of decimal points.

Syntax:

Where n= return a rounded number

decimal_number= It specifies the nth decimal place.

Example

12) Define inheritance in Java?

Inheritance in Java is an OOP’s concept by which one class can inherit the property (fields and methods) and behaviour of other class. With the help of inheritance in Java, we can increase the reusability of methods and fields as one class can use the methods and fields of another class.

Inheritance shows the IS-A relationship which is a parent-child relationship.

Following are some important points of inheritance in Java:

• A class which inherits the property of another class is called as child class/derived class, or subclass.
• A class whose properties got inherited by another class is known as parent class/ Superclass.
• To inherit a class by another class, we use ‘extend’ keyword.

Syntax:

13) Differentiate between overloading and overriding?

14)What do you understand by normalization?

Database normalization is a mechanism of organizing data in database tables in an easier way that there should be no data redundancy. It increases data integrity. It is a multistep process which puts data in tabular form in the relational database and removes duplicate data.

15) Write code to check that a number is palindrome or not?

Output:

The number 181 is palindrome  

16) Can we achieve runtime polymorphism in Java only?

No, we can achieve runtime polymorphism in other languages also such as C++, C#, etc.

17) What do you understand by virtual function?

A virtual function in C++ is a member function of the base class, which is redefined in the derived class. To create a virtual function, ‘virtual’ keyword is used. The purpose of the virtual function is to tell the compiler to perform the dynamic dispatch on function.

18. Write a program to add two numbers without using arithmetic addition operator.

Output:

Addition of a and b is 30  

19) What is Default case in the Switch statement?

The default keyword in switch case is a special term. If in a switch statement, no case satisfies the input condition then the default case will be executed and will give the corresponding output.

20) Differentiate between the Switch Statement and if else statement?

Both switch statement and if-else statement are used for selection of statement for a particular condition.

Main differences between both are given below:

21) Why database is considered as self- describing?

One of the characteristics of the database is that it is self-describing. It is considered as self-describing because it contains data with metadata which describes the relationship between data and tables in the particular database. Hence, database self-describes itself with the help of metadata.

22) What do you understand by ConcurrentMap?

The ConcurrentMap is an Interface, which extends Map interface. The ConcurrentMap interface is a member of the Java Collections framework. It is capable of handling concurrent access and provide thread safety.

Syntax

Where K and V are the parameters, which represents

K= the type of Keys

V= the type of value mapped with Keys

23) What do you understand by Paging in OS?

In Operating System, Paging is a technique used for memory management. By this technique, OS stores and retrieve the data from secondary memory to main memory in same sized blocks, which are termed as pages.

Paging is used for the following benefits in OS:

• Paging allows faster access of data when required.
• Paging is very useful for virtual memory implementation.

24) What do you understand by Hashtable?

In Java, Hashtable is a class which implements hash table data structure. It maps keys to value. For retrieving and storing objects from a Hashtable, every object which is used as a key, must implement the hashcode method and equals method.

Following are some main points for Hashtable:

• A Hashtable is an array of the list, which is termed as a bucket. To identify the position of the bucket we need to call the hashcode() method.
• Hashtable class contains unique elements in the list.
• It is the same as HashMap, but it is synchronized.

Syntax

25) What is the difference between DBMS and RDBMS?

The DBMS and RDBMS both are used for storing the information. RDBMS is an advanced version of DBMS but there are some differences between both the databases:

26) What is join in SQL? What are its types?

A Join statement in SQL is used to combine the data or rows from two or more different tables if they satisfy the given join condition. The minimum joining condition is (n-1) for joining tables where n is number of tables. To perform a join operation in SQL, we use JOIN keyword.

Types of Join in SQL:

There are four types of Join in SQL which are:

• Inner Join
• Outer Join
• Left Join
• Right join.

27) What do you understand by the interface and abstract class?

Interface: Interface is like a class which has methods and variables, but all the methods declared in an Interface are abstract in nature. Interface in Java is a way to achieve abstraction and multiple inheritance.

To declare an interface in Java, we use ‘interface’ keyword. With the help of interface, we can achieve complete abstraction.

Syntax

Abstract class: Use of an abstract class is another way to achieve abstraction in Java. For the creation of an abstract class, an ‘abstract’ keyword is used. With an abstract class, we can achieve complete or partial abstraction, which means it can have abstract or non-abstract methods. An abstract class cannot be instantiated.

Syntax

28) Differentiate between static and init block in Java?

Static block is only executed at the first time of creation of a class object by JVM whereas init block is executed at every time whenever JVM creates the class Object. If in a class both static and init blocks are given then firstly static block will be executed and then init block.

Example:

Output:

This is Static block  This is init block  This is init block  This is init block  This is init block  

THIRD Round: HR Interview Questions

The third round of Sapient interview process is HR interview round. This round is dedicated to check candidates’ communication skills, soft skills, and Confidence. Hence this is also an important round of the complete process, but it requires a positive attitude with a good confidence level to be selected in Sapient Company.

Following are the mostly asked HR questions:

1. Describe yourself.
2. What is popular about Sapient?
3. From where you get information about Sapient?
4. Tell me about your educational background?
5. What is your favourite task to do at a free time?
6. How is your experience for your previous company?
7. What is your greatest weakness in regards with work?
8. What is your greatest strength in regards with work?
9. Tell me about your organization skills?
10. Why do you want to join Sapient?