Calculate the area of the meeting room in sqm

Question

Hi! I got an information from previous candidates that he got a question where the interviewer asked him "what is the area of the meeting room in sqm?"

I could not find the best way to use bottom-up or top-bottom cause it was really confusing to segment the parts.

Hope you can help! Thanks!

Answer 1

Hey, this is not a trick question and sometimes you might get these. Just common sense is enough in this case.. Area= Length x Width of the room or Length ^2 if square room, or if a circular room PixRadius^2...you know the drill :) If you are in the room, be creative, walk to two walls (length and width) and take a rough count of meter long steps.

Otherwise just use your height (in meters) to estimate roughly the length and breadth of the room.

Another similar question for you to try: It takes 6hrs by passenger plane from City A to City B. Whats the distance in KM between the two cities?

Answer 2

Hi there,

Was it the specific meeting room you were in?

First of all, forget bottom-up/top-down. It's helpful to learn both approaches. It's very unhelpful to think, during a case "hmmm, should I use top-down or bottom-up"

You need to use the approach that just makes sense!

Here, it's clearly a bottom-up approach (again, don't need to worry about knowing that). You calculate sqm by multiplying width by length...so...you needed to literally just figure out the width of the room and the length. You could use your steps, height, etc as a proxy for a set # of meters. Then, multiply that out by how much remaining length/width was left.

Answer 3

If this is the meeting room you are currently in you just have to estimate length and width and multiply it is not that complicated...

Answer 4

Funny interview question. Was this referring to the room the candidate was in?

Tbh I don't think this is a trick question. But I also have no clue what valuable information an interviewer would draw from that beyond the candidate's ability to estimate width and length of a room and multiplying two single-digit numbers...

Answer 5

Hi there! I agree that it was not a tricky question. The best way to solve it it`s just to walk around and count. One big step is approximately 1 meter.
Then just multiply the length by the width.
Was it helpful?

GB

Answer 6

Hi, in addition to the solutions proposed by the other coaches in the discussion, I would like to suggest similar cases in the platform to practice with:

https://www.preplounge.com/en/consulting-forum/how-much-would-you-charge-to-clean-all-the-windows-in-seattle-4965
https://www.preplounge.com/en/consulting-forum/market-sizing-milk-consumption-5087
https://www.preplounge.com/en/consulting-forum/how-would-you-calculate-the-value-of-a-cow-4982
https://www.preplounge.com/en/consulting-forum/estimate-number-of-traffic-lights-in-a-london-5692

Hope it helps,
Antonello