IBM Placement Paper Pattern

October 19, 2010 Category : Studies Abroad

Hi Friends!
International Business Machines (IBM) is an American multinational
computer, technology and IT consulting corporation headquartered in
Armonk, New York, United States. IBM is the world's fourth largest
technology company and the second most valuable global brand(after
Coca-Cola). IBM is one of the few information technology companies
with a continuous history. IBM manufactures and sells computer
hardware and software and offers infrastructure services, hosting
services, and consulting services in areas ranging from mainframe
computers to nano technologies.
This is the blog about how the IBM interview pattern and paper would
be.
1. WRITTEN TEST:
This is the new pattern of IBM. It contains 3 sections.

SECTION-1 [Matrix Test] 15 ques - 13 min. [No negative marks for

this section]
SECTION-2 [Number series test] 20 ques - 4 min. 15 mins mathematical
[Negative marking(1/4) is there for this section.]
SECTION-3 [Analytical type (Aptitude)] 12 ques - 15 min. [Negative marking(1/4)
is there for this section.]
SECTION 1: Some information is given in the form of matrices, with headings for
rows as row1, row2 ... Etc. For columns with headings as column1, column 2...
Etc. Those matrices are as follows.
C1 C2 C3 C4
@ * 2 Z
S K ? $
I P Z +
# 8 F Q
Questions are as follows (Not same questions but same type)
1. If Column1, Column4 are interchanged and row3, row4 are interchanged and
diagonal elements from top left to bottom right are written in reverse order then
what is the element in row1 and column 1?
2. If Z's in odd numbered rows are replaced with 7's and S's in odd numbered
columns are replaced with 5's then which column elements sum equals to 9?
3.After giving similar type of conditions , what is the element left to H?
In this section they gave around 4 matrices of this type and gave some questions
for each matrix.
Total No. of Questions are 15. These are multiple choice questions.5 answers
were given for each question. No negative marks are there for this section. Time
Limit is 13 minutes.
SECTION-2 :
All questions in this section are from number series. Total number of
questions are 20 and the time limit is 4 minutes.These are also
multiple choice questions( 5 options). Negative marking(1/4) is there
for this section.
2. NUMBER SERIES (20 qs -4 mins-20 marks- negative 1/4)
Its very simple and we can easily score the points but we should be very
quick....Time management is very important for this section.
And one more thing is the invigilator signals time for every 30 secs don't feel
tense with that just go wth your work..
The questions will be like this:
EX: 17,18,19,34,35,19,20,___
Ans....21
EX: 22,21,34,33,45,____
Ans......44
EX: 40,41,41,42,42,42,44,44,____
Ans.....44
SECTION-3
Negative marking(1/4) is there for this section.This consists of
Analytical type Questions. This secton is little bit tough.You must have
practice to do this section. (Questions: 12, time: 15 minutes).Be
careful while answering the questions and mark the answer if you
know that perfectly otherwise leave it and go for next.

1. If a company produces 15 different models of tv sets, 2 inches

screen and 4 different model of 4 inch screen size then how many
models should vendor has for all the model ?
2. If a team consists 20 members in which 20% are mathematician then how
many member should they hire so that the ratio would become 10/11.
3. The rate of color toner increases $33 to $35 and rate of black&white toner
increases $28 to $29 if company spend $1540 in which 3/5 is color toner how
much is total expenditure.
4. A computer shop consists 3 brand's laptop .Laptop of brand A is sold 3/16, B is
sold 1/16 and C is sold ¾ then what fraction is sold by the shop in all.
Ans. 1/16
5. Printer A prints 8192 character per minute and printer B prints 13862 character
per minute. 4 characters are equal to one word. Printer A starts at 7:15 am while
Printer B starts at 7:29 am then at what time both will have same number of
words printed?
6. In a library there are 5 cluster and each is having 44 books(module). In first
week 75 books are used, in second 95, in third 95 and in fourth 160 books are
used. then how much fraction of books are used?
7. We have 171 kg rice custing 7 rs/kg.we have rice at 11 rs/kg and 2 rs/kg .then
after mixing 11 rs/kg and 2 rs/kg rice. What is quantity of 11 rs/kg rice ?
Ans. 76.00
8. Rectangular room has width half of its length. When 6 is decreased from both
length and width then its area is differed by 108, so find the width?
Ans. L=8, W=4
9. Rectangular room has width twice of its length. When 6 is decreased from both
length and width then its area is differed by 108 so find the width.
Ans L=4, W=8
10. Company A taken a truck on rent of $1280 per month another company B
bought the truck in $40000 and send $120 per month. After 4 years what will be
the difference in the amount spent by the both companies on the TRUCK?
11. In a company printing work is done by two machine 5% of the work done by
machine A are wasted, and 40% of work done by machine B are wasted. if the
80% of the total work is done by machine A. then what is the total percentage of
wastage?
Then Group Discussion
Gd topics are :
1.Money is irresponsible.
2.Exercise is good for health. brain and drain.
3.Primary education. Is better than Higher education.
4.Nuclear deal

Here they can check only communication skills.

Then communication test
Details about IBM Voice/Communication test you will be given cell
phone and you have to dial the server number. The details regarding
this will be communicated to you at the time of test.Once you
connected to the server there will be five rounds to check your
Voice/communication.

1st round - "Read the sentences"

You'll be given a paper which contain 10-12 sentences in english.
You will be asked to read the sentences like "Read the sentence no
6..."
There will be 8-9 sentences to read.
2nd round - "Repeat the sentences"
The server will say some sentences and you have to repeat them.
The senetences will be in different voices, speed, accent.
Make sure your voice will be audible and clear.
3rd round - "Make sentence from Jumble words"
The server will pronounce some jumbled words and you have to
make sentence.In that you should not add your own
words/articles/adjectives to make the sentence. You have to use only
the sentences pronounced by the server. (It would be normally used
sentences like - "eat i daily mango" )

4th round - "One word answer"

The server will ask question which you have to reply in one word.
Like... what is the color of milk?
 What is frozen water called? (ICE)
 Which is faster:cat or worm? (CAT)
 Which is thinner:finger or leg? (FINGER)
 How many weeks are there in a year? (52)
 How many minutes r there in 1 and a half hr? (90)
 What do u wear when you go out in cold: sweater or shirt? (SWEATER)
 How many eggs are there in a dozen? (12)
 If you are going out for lunch with your mother, who are you: daughter or
sister? (DAUGHTER)
 Which is smaller castle or cottage? (COTTAGE)
 Afternoon comes before or after lunch? (BEFORE)
 Trees have more number of branches or trunks? (BRANCHES)
 How many months are there in two years? (24)
 You can see with your eyes or ears? (EYES)

5th Round - "Answer in detail"

The server will ask descriptive questions like "What will you do if you
become the Prime Minister"
The whole process will take 10-12 min. The accent will be of US, UK,
Australia. The questions are very easy to answer but you have to catch
what the server is saying.

Technical and HR round

DBMS:
Normalisation, Difference between DBMS &RDBMS, Primary,
Secondary, Foreign, Unique key and Difference between primary &
unique key

Data structures:
Bubble sort,Differences between stack & queue

C++:
 What is OOPS ?
 Encapsulation, Dynamic binding with examples and Inheritence
 Difference between multiple & multilevel inheritence
 Virtual function(Frequently asked question)
 Inline function
 Abstract & friend class
JAVA:
 Final class
 Swings
 Frame
 Layouts
 Advantages of Java
 Interface
 Why Java is platform independent?
 Write a program in Java to print the odd numbers between 1 to 100?
Operating system:
 Memory management,Thrashing
 Differences between Process and thread
 Different types of Scheduling
 Explanation of Round Robin Scheduling
 Deadlock, Starvation, Avoidance, Prevention etc.

Networking:
 Different types of topologies
 Differences between Tcp/Ip and OSI

IBM Interview process

Its a 2days process

on first day they have taken written test and english test
2nd day followed by GD,technical and project developemnt round

1.WRITTEN TEST
Its an online test called as IPAT test each question has 2.15sec
timelimit first 15 questions completely on number series only .we can
clear easily if we have practise on number series after 15 question
session gets close and next same pattern continues with change of
questions on percentages,ratios,probability ,areas.....lot practise
requires to clear this session as each question will be tricky and time
taking to solve

2.ENGLISH TEST
Its jus a 15 min test they will give one paragraph from that we need to
write an email to the client in jus 6lines .salutation is most important
in the email writing ..if we give clear saluation we can clear the round
easily . but many participants gone in this round only by doing silly
mistakes like writing as thanking you as we write in letter writing
....remember its an email writing

3.GROUP DISCUSSION
In our room we are 15 participants and has given the topic ROLE OF
WOMEN IN DEVELOPEMNT and has given 2min time to think the points
and 15 minutes time to speak among us and given each participant
one minute for summary ..
NOTE:speak confidently and fluently thast enough to clear this round .

4.TECHNICAL ROUND
This was my fav round ..HR was so friendly
SP:gud afternoon sir
HR:gud afternoon,take ur seat
SP:thank u
HR:tell abt urself
SP:tld..jus tell ur name ,father name ,location,schoolng
,graduation,family background,hobbies,strenghts
HR:write a program on multiplication of 3 numbers using C or java
SP:i have written and shown output too
Hr:good
HR:write syntax on bubble sort or insertion sert
SP:can i write on bubble sort sir .
HR:okay as ur wish..
SP: explained each and every line and how it get sorts
HR:ohkk.so u have an idea on javascript?
SP:yes sir ..(as i mentioned in resume he asked )
HR :y we use javascript?
SP:its for validation
HR: okay then take an example and show the validation
SP:i have written on ALERT msg box
HR: asked one puzzle like cut the cake into nine pieces using 3 cuts
SP: i tried max to cut into 9 but got 6 only
HR:smiled and said to leave .
5:PROJECT DEVELOPEMNT ROUND :
Covered topics on java in deep ,and asked my fav subject i said OS
..asked questions on it .what is assembly language.machine
laguage,difference between them?,what is JVM?
about my final project?
usefulness of it?
C,C++ etc.

All the best guys!

Hii guys....myself Nakul S Varge I am from PICT,pune, IT specification.

IBM GBS visited our campus on 6th jan 2012.Total of 66 students are
appeared for the company and the have selected 25 including me. I
am going to share my complete experience with you..hope it will help
you..

First off all there is a company presentation for 10-15 minutes.Then

there is a english test in which they have given three paragraphs and
we have to write an abstract in 7 lines only..not more than seven line.
If anyone goes above seven,then marks will be deducted.so strictly
follow the rule...it was so easy..best way to pickup few lines from each
para and write it down.

Then there is a online aptitude test which contains only two types of
questions
i) Number series : find out the missing number..we have to identify
the pattern..it was so easy...just practice for 15-20 questions and you
will find it very simple.

ii)Quantitative: Just read all the formulaes from R S Agrawal and just
go through the solve problems..it is more than enough to crack this
section. Many examples are based upon formulaes only. Very easy.

There is no sectional cutoff.

Based on this two rounds they shortlisted 39 students.

Then there is a group discussion in a group of 10 students. The topic

given to my group is Print media Vs Broadcast media. They gave us 2
minuets to think and half an hour to speak. At the end of the session
they gave all an opportunity to speak 2 min. i,e conclusion.

Cracking GD:

keep in mind guys in GD,first five persons are noticeable. try to speak
in first five peoples and be specific. After your first sentence try to
spoke within next 2 minutes,the gap between two sentences should
not more than 2 minutes coz in this way u r not noticeable.

The main thing here is if all candidates are nicely spoken,they will
select complete group.My group was completely selected.

Next round was technical interview.

This round is different for EnTC and Comp/IT students.

For comp/IT:

In technical section they have given three programs and we have to

write code for that in any choice of language.
my programs were

i) Factorial ii)Count total number of nodes in tree ii) Insertion sort

my friends also got queries from DBMS.

Here they ask to explain the programs. Just explain the programs
deeply...thats it.
And the final round was an HR. It was very easy and just for formality.
In this round they will give a situation and ask u how to deal with it.
They will go through your resume and ask some basic technical
questions my question was JOIN in DBMS.Just keep smiling in this
round. They are very friendly and dont worry if you stuck somewhere
just tell them that I don't no.they will give you another question.It is a
kind of general discussion.

So guys....this was my journey and finally I got selected in IBM. I hope

this will helpful for you.

Best of luck........!

Hi Friends....

Today IBM - Global Services came for the recruitment at NIT Calicut.

They started with announcing that cut off is 65% or 6.5 CGPA. It is a
strict rule. Even my friends who has 6.49 also not eligible. So be
careful regarding this.

Then they started with an online test consists of Aptitude questions

and Number series questions. They gave enough time for the test.

Next there is a written communication test. They may ask to write a

letter to your customer regarding any issue. Just see the pattern how
to write a letter. They won't check it. But write in a polite manner.

They selected 58 out 68 appeared.

Day1 is over.
They started GD on 2nd day at 9AM.

Then there is a Group discussion. It is not actually a GD. They ask to

speak on a topic for 2 mins. Don't worry. Speak fluently. They check
communication skills.

Next round in Technical HR.

They asked what algorithm is used in Google search. Actually they too
don't know but they check your knowledge regarding searching
algorithms. If they want they may take HR also.

Finally they took 35 students.

Communication is the key point and they prefer girls because it is a

service based company. Be confident on whatever you say. You can
definitely crack it.

IBM GBS came to our campus for recruitment process.

There were 100 students participating in this process.

At about 9.00 am they started the PrePlacement Talk

The following rounds were the part of the days process

1. Online Aptitude test

18 Questions NUMBER SERIES(Not so Difficult)

18 Quantitative Questions
The timer set was for individual questions i.e 2 min 15 secs per
question

2. Written Communication test

Writing an official dummy note considering you are an IBM employee

based on the information provided.not more than 6 statements.

After these 2 rounds 40 were selected for the next process out of 100.

3. Group Discussion

They made 5 batches of 8 students each.

different topics were given like, CORRUPTION-a way of life, Social
networking-A threat or boon, Solar energy of atomic energy etc etc. It
lasted for about 20 minutes.

After Gd 31 Students were shortlisted.

4. Technical round

Few questions on Database were asked,Study ur resume well,now

your projects well.Since i did my project using ASP.NET i was asked
few questions on it.Apart from these technical questions Few personal
interpretition questions were asked like How many stairs did u climb to
come to this room?? and you have 1 bucket of water,one needle and 4
bottles with bottle caps.how will u fill water in bottles without opening
caps?

5. HR round

General questions like what are your interests,any interesting moment

in your life,a puzzle was given of making 4 same shapes from a big
single shape.

Finally we were all done with the rounds and were waiting for results.
Out of 31, 25 students were selected and i was one of them. Really
was a wonderful experience.

All the best!

It was a referral off campus. The drive started with checking all d
documents which we were intimated to carry along with the hall ticket.

the eligibility criteria was 65%in 10th n 12th n 70% in B tech.

Although i was already placed in another company ...getting into IBM
was a dream come true. and very much like u ll ..weeks b4 ..i was
scanning previous years papers.
Believe me friends ...don't get impatient if u do not get selected in
some company..its just bcoz dt was nt ur day ..u ll surely be wen it will
b ur day...:))

well coming to the written...

we had a 15 mint eng langg test..we were given a paragraph..reading
that we had to summarize the scenario to a client in just six
sentences.

then there was aptitude test...

the test comprised of 3 sets..
1)data matrices..13 mints 15 questions.
2)number series..4 mints 10 questions..
3) mathematical reasoning .. 12 mints 10 questions..

we were made to wait for 3 hrs...

then there was gd.. groups of 8 were made n the gd started

immediately..'
in my group the topic was 'solar energy or atomic energy is going to
be the future energy..dont panic...in gd..just try to get n opportunity
to speak ..we all first introduced ourselves...then every1 was given a
chance to pseak on the topic..den d forum was open all discussed..n
finally every1 gave the conclusion.one by one...

except 1 student rest all cleared....dont hesitate..dont panic..just

speak without fumbling and making grammatical mistakes..expressing
logical n relevant ideas...
next we waited for interview..my name was called..

hr n tech interview..
hr questions were like..introduce urself..some situation based
questions... puzzles...
tech..dbms queries..basic c prog...project description...ur role in
projec..
and finally ready to relocate..dts it..

we were made to sit..n finally hr came n announced our names..n

gave us d eaf form..dt was d happiest moment for me...n we were told
that very shortly we will have to join...BY gods grace i can call myself
an IBMer.. :))

hope u ll find my experience useful..

dont loose hope..have faith in GOD..

See u at IBM..
All d besT!!!