GIAI Square Membership Quiz (For Level 1)

We have a membership level system that requires you to pass quiz for every promotion. The quizzes are hosted on our Learning Management System (LMS), called GIAI LMS. Like GIAI Square, the basic membership only requires your login via Google or Microsoft Authorization. This will give Level 0 on GIAI Square and empty registration to GIAI LMS. Most activities on GIAI Square requite at least Level 1, so you must pass the promotion quiz. Below is the promotion quiz link

The quiz has 3 questions for maximum 10 minutes and only 3 attempts are allowed. If you fail all three, you are not allowed to be promoted, and unfortunately we are unwilling to give you another chance.

The questions are intended to be complicated. Each question tests your mathematical intuition, deductive reasoning, and reading skills. We have consistent record that almost all applicants fail, unless they have prior knowledge or 3rd party support.

This is our way to ensure that GIAI Square is a clean, healthy, constructive, and most importantly intellectual community. Nonetheless, we do not like you to fail and turn around. As such, we have decided to provide you a guide document so that anyone patient and diligent enough can leverage the instruction and use it to pass the quiz.

Below is a rather lengthy document to explain the 3 questions in Level 1 quiz. Plz carefully read every detail so that you can pass in your first attempt. If you think you are smart enough, or if you want to test your intelligence, you can skip and go straight to the test. If fail, then come back anytime before you use up all 3 attempts.

Questions are given with random order, as well as choices for each question. Sometimes we change the labels, so you really have to carefully read all, otherwise you won’t be able to get the right answer.

Q. Mathematical intuition: Sign of b-2a

Above graph may help you to find the answer, if you know what FOC means in graph. If not, go on reading.

The graph follows the function y= ax^2 + bx+c. You may try with high school math by tranforming the equation to y = a(x + \frac{b}{2a})^2 + c - \frac{b^2}{4a}, but this is where you lose the battle. By the shape of the graph, you can easily guess a<0 and b>0, c>0, but it is hard to tell whether -\frac{b}{2a} >1 or not. What if the question was about b-3a? In other words, the question is designed to test your mathematical intuition, not how fast can you decompose the simple function.

The first order condition (FOC) with respect to x will be

  • \frac{dy}{dx} = 2ax + b

When x=-1, you can retrieve -2a+b. In graph, it is the slope’s sign when x=-1. So, in the end, the question asked you if you can match the FOC and the graph. Since the graph is increasing while x<0, you can say that b-2a>0. In fact, from this point on, you can easily claim that b-ka >0, \forall k \in N >0.

Once you invite differential equation in your reasoning, the question does not require more than 2 seconds to find the answer, and can also be extended general cases.

Hope this short snippet can help you to see what we wanted to test for.

Q. Deductive reasoning: When is the surprise quiz day?
One of the days in the week will be the quiz day. And, the key element in this quiz is ‘surprise’. It has to meet the condition that the quiz is ‘surprise’.

With that condition in mind, let’s think of a student on Thursday night. If there has not been any quiz, there certainly will be a quiz on Friday, unless the professor lied about it. Then, will it be a ‘surprise’ quiz? It is not. So, Friday cannot be the quiz day.

Then, put yourself on Wednesday night. Since we know that Friday cannot be the ‘surprise’ quiz day, if there has not been any quiz by Wednesday, then there must be quiz on Thursday. Will it then qualify ‘surprise’? Well, it is not surprise, if you know with certainty.

The same logic can be applied on Tuesday night. Now you know that there will be no ‘surprise’ quiz on Friday and Thursday, therefore it has to be Wednesday. If you have certainty that it will be Wednesday, then does it qualify to be ‘surprise’?

By exactly the same logic, the ‘surprise’ quiz will be on Monday, probably right after the professor announced it.

Q. Reading skills: Who is the data scientist?
This is a fairly solid question, if you are familiar with the field of data science. Most people out there claim that they are data ‘scientist’, but almost all of them are merely data 'engineer’s or data 'analyst’s. As an institution running an AI/Data Science dedicated higher education, Swiss Institute of Artificial Intelligence, we encounter many uninformed and/or misinformed students and non-experts that as long as you do coding, you can claim a software engineer, and if they deal with data, then they are data scientists.

Data Science is a dicipline that requires mathematical modeling as the core of the job skills. For example, tree-based models in data science treats data with fragmentable ranges, but regression-based models finds higher correlation, which creates decisively different end result. The tree requires enormously large amount of computing resources unless the data is pre-categorized, and it is prone to mis-specification as the complication grows. Regression type models require much less computational costs, but higher order complications may not yield better fit, unless the data itself is designed properly.

The field of data science academically studies issues related to minor mathematical changes in a model that can potentially impact on both computational costs and loss of accuracy. Software programming or SQL query building are little to do with mathematical modeling.

So in the quiz, except Don, nobody has any prior training on this subject, thus no one is doing anything remotedly related to data science.

We hope this is enough for you to find the right answer in the quiz. We wish you the very best, and hope to see you here on GIAI Square. If there is any error, feel free to leave comments.

@davidoneill Thank you for the quick summary. Concise but still nail every key point :+1: I added a few lines just for clarification. For all, I do admit that the questions may scare off many potential members, but the very first thing we should keep in mind is what we want to achieve from this community. With @davidoneill 's detailed doc, as long as they read, they can pass. Some people may have to read more than once, but this is exactly the kind of behavior that we have to reinforce. After all, we want this place for learning by playing (among smart people).

Thx for the fix. I still agree with others that it is a bit too high bar, but I do not have any better alternative. Some intellectual hurdle is indeed necessary.