Hedge Funds interview preparation

Long-short equity, macro, event-driven, distressed, multi-manager platforms and the Indian Category III landscape. Every question is either traced to a named firm from a public candidate report, or tagged at desk level when we could not trace it — answers lead with the point, then the mechanism, then the limitation.

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Question bank

100 questions, mapped to the firms that asked them

Questions
100
Traced to a firm
39
Firms
16
Updated
September 2026
Asked at
All firmsMan Group10Balyasny Asset Management7Bridgewater Associates3D.E. Shaw3Apollo Global Management2KKR2Oaktree Capital Management2Point722Squarepoint Capital2AQR Capital Management1Baupost Group1Coatue Management1HPS Investment Partners1Northern Trust1Viking Global Investors1Wolverine Trading1
Topic
All topicsStrategy taxonomy8Stock pitch10Short selling6Portfolio construction8Risk and drawdown8Performance and alpha7Event-driven and merger arb8Distressed and credit5Fund structure and economics7Financing, NAV and operations6Compliance and research process5Quant and systematic6India and Category III AIFs5Career and fit11
Level
AnyCoreIntermediateHard
Type
AnyTechnicalMarket viewBrainteaserCaseFit
Showing 1–1 of 1 · filtered from 100Clear filters
  1. 083What is the angle between the hands of a clock at 3:15?Quant and systematicCorephone / first roundMan GroupEquity Hedge · London · 2016

    Say this

    7.5 degrees. The minute hand is exactly at 90 degrees, but the hour hand has moved a quarter of the way from 3 towards 4, which is a quarter of 30 degrees, so it sits at 97.5. The difference is 7.5.

    Then walk it

    1. Set up the units once and the whole family of these questions becomes trivial. The hour hand moves 360 degrees in 12 hours, so 0.5 degrees per minute. The minute hand moves 360 in 60 minutes, so 6 degrees per minute.
    2. Positions from 12 o'clock: minute hand is 15 times 6, which is 90. Hour hand is 3 times 30 plus 15 times 0.5, which is 90 plus 7.5, so 97.5.
    3. Difference is 7.5 degrees, and it is the smaller of the two angles, which is what the question means unless it says otherwise.
    4. The general formula worth memorising: the angle equals the absolute value of 30 times hours minus 5.5 times minutes. At 3:15 that is 90 minus 82.5, which is 7.5.
    5. The whole trap is the hour hand. Candidates say zero because they picture the hour hand parked on the 3. It is not; it moves continuously, and that is the entire point of the question.
    6. Say the answer, then say the setup in one line. In a phone screen this question is testing whether you can be quick and precise about a small thing, so do not over-narrate.

    Where candidates lose it

    Answering zero. It is by far the most common response and it comes from forgetting that the hour hand moves continuously. Also, say which angle you are giving, the smaller one, and do not spend ninety seconds deriving a formula the interviewer already knows.

    Expect next

    • When is the next time the hands overlap exactly?
    • How many times a day do the hands form a right angle?
    • What is the angle at 9:45?

    Reported by candidates at Man Group (Equity Hedge, London, 2016). Source: Wall Street Oasis.

Firm tags come from public, anonymous candidate reports on Wall Street Oasis: strong signal, not sworn testimony. Firms are named as the places a question was reported, not as partners of Fin Maverick. Answers are written for this page to show how to think out loud; they are not scripts to recite.