Mental Math Practice: Round to the Nearest Dollar: Getting the Most “Bang for your Buck”
Mental Math Practice: Getting the Most "Bang for your Buck" In case interviews, you may be asked to undergo mental math gyrations from Minute 1. Consider the following excerpt from this sample case. https://youtu.be/pF1HTYg8Vhg This deluge of information might come as a series of facts, sprinkled throughout the case – or it might arrive after a two-sentence prompt citing a client’s desire to reduce their R&D costs. “[…] All of the R&D facilities and staff are concentrated in the Boston area. There are approximately 2,300 R&D employees and the total R&D costs are approximately $12B per annum. The client has traditionally received 80% of its total revenue ($24B) from drugs to treat heart disease, blood pressure, and liver disease; 80% of the patents on these [three] drugs will expire by 2015, and the company therefore expanded research into adjacent areas in 2010. Not getting satisfactory results, the company expanded the research portfolio in 2012 [emphasis mine].” If you’re given all this information as a trainee, candidate, or interviewee, you’re likely to be experiencing hand cramps in the near future. Yet the interviewer will also expect that the cogs in your mind are turning, too – that is, that they are…