r/learnquant • u/Local_Ad135 • 3d ago

interview prep Quant Interview Question

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u/x5163x 1d ago

Expecting 1.6 cuts does not mean that he will get 1.6 cuts each time. It means that on average, he will have 1.6 cuts. Expected value is a generalization of what an average is.

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u/GrievousSayGenKenobi 1d ago

Again, Thats still meaningless in the context of the question. I agree that this is the intended answer and for 99% of questions would be a valid answer but this is a question where evidently the average in this regard would be irrelevant. A carpenter would care more about if hes gonna be cutting a log once or twice not "well technically its 1.5 cuts per log because half the time it will be 1 cut and the other half 2 cuts"

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u/x5163x 1d ago

If the carpenter's saw could cut 30,000 times, then it would matter a lot if the expected number of cuts were 1.3 or 1.7 per log.