Cracking TCS Internal Digital Exam!!
The rise of digital technologies and rapid change in skillset requirements have made TCS to return back with Internal Digital Exam as a means of retaining the skilled associates which they refer to as hot talent. “If they are able to show that they can play at that level and they can code at that level, they deserve that (high) salary,” Subramaniam said.
The exam might be a bit easy for associates who recently joined TCS but may be a little tricky for the associates who are experienced as they are working on different sets of technologies but that doesn’t mean you can’t crack it. It requires a little efforts. Also, don’t think its all about coding. It tests you on the basis of your analytical, aptitude and thinking skills.
The exam comprises of the following Groups:
English
Quantitative Aptitude
Lateral Thinking
Agility
Programming Logic
Advanced Coding
English:
It consists of 10 questions and duration is 15 minutes. The types of questions are not that tough. It will consist of passage based, sentence correction, synonyms, antonyms etc. Negative marking will be there for each wrong answer. Try to get at least 7 correct in this question as it is easy to score section. Everyone will almost score same in this section. Time won’t be an constraint as 15 minutes are plenty according to level of questions.
Quantitative Aptitude:
This is the group which becomes the most deciding factor in your selection. Think of it as this way: There are two associates who performed well in coding section, test cases passed but TCS has only one vacancy. So it acts as a deciding factor as in English group people score almost same.
There are 12 questions that you need to attempt in 30 minutes. It will consist of mix questions of varying level of difficulty, no pre defined syllabus. Identify easy ones first and get them done, then move to other ones. Don’t mess with any difficult question as it will consume your time and later in hurry the chances are you will mark the easy ones as wrong. There is negative marking, leave the ones you don’t know instead of making guesses. Keep looking your timer in this section.
Lateral Thinking:
This is the group that test your thinking ability. You can’t do much about it in terms of preparation. 7 questions will be there that needs to be solved in 30 minutes. There is no negative marking in this section. Prepare all possible words with meaning from a given word, find that missing link, identify the correct pattern — basically, any brainteaser, puzzles, riddles you can think of.
Agility:
It consists of 2 questions that need to be solved in 25 minutes.
First is application based question, some passage will be there and you have to draw the inferences from that passage. To prepare for this read articles on new and upcoming technologies that’s the theme of this question. How would you tackle a problem in the best possible manner despite having many challenges.
Second question is a statement based problem that will be solving a specific challenge having lot of constraints. You have to write a java program for that problem which will be tested for all the constraints. If your code passes the test cases you will be awarded marks depending on how many test cases your program passes. Again there is no option of any other language only JAVA.
Programming Logic:
If you’re a CSE student, you should already be familiar with the topics in this section. I was from ECE not having much coding background but here my experience in the project helped. The questions revolves around C language.
Recursion, arrays, stacks, queues, linked lists, trees, binary search trees, binary heaps, graphs.
In short, you should know data structures and their implementations. Along with them, you should know standard algorithms and their space and time complexities. You will get 20 minutes to solve 7 questions. Do remember you negative marking is there and you can’t afford to lose marks in this section. So if you are sure then only mark the answers.
Advanced Coding:
As the name gives away, this section is an hour-long coding round.
Languages allowed: C, C++, Java, Python, Perl, PHP. This set of languages may change overtime. It all depends on your preparation but if you ask me don’t go much deep into coding, just get the basics right. One advice I will give you before writing the actual program pen down your thoughts and logic on paper then start writing program. It will help you to solve on time.
Let’s have one question from my side.
Find the least positive number missing from an array of integers. Time complexity should be O(n). Input: [1,-5,7,-2,-3,0,10,100,3] Output: 2
It might sound simple as a program but when you implement it to solve problems, it feels gratifying. I used it to name my ec2 instances with fix set of 3 names [aws1, aws2, aws3] that were coming up from auto scaling as these names were already hardcoded in the application and auto scaling will always give you different names.
When you will be taking 3 hours long exam you may face issues on your system, it might turnoff or get hanged. So don’t panic you will be provided proper time. It will resume from where you left. It happened 3 times with me so thought to share.
Language recommended from my side if you are new to coding. C/C++. You don’t have to prepare separately for programming logic and advanced coding part.
Once you get selected there will be interview rounds after that. Then finally you will be moved to Digital Cadre of Tata Consultancy Services. Wish you all the best and hope you all become the part of digital.
For those of you who have missed this exam by a few months margin, don’t feel sad about it. Remember every role has immense potential. It is your continual learning, adaptability, commitment & attitude that will take you to heights.
