Investment Banking interview preparation
Every question below is either traced to a named firm from a public candidate report, or tagged at desk level when we could not trace it. Answers are written the way you would actually say them out loud — answer first, then the mechanism, then the limitation.
100 questions, mapped to the firms that asked them
- Questions
- 100
- Traced to a firm
- 100
- Firms
- 46
- Updated
- September 2026
091What angle is formed by the clock hands at 3:15?Centerview PartnersInvestment Banking · Menlo Park · 2025
Say this
7.5 degrees. The minute hand is exactly on the 3, but the hour hand has moved a quarter of the way from 3 to 4. Each hour is 30 degrees, so a quarter of that is 7.5.
Then walk it
- The clock face is 360 degrees over 12 hours, so each hour mark is 30 degrees apart.
- At 3:15 the minute hand sits exactly at the 3, which is 90 degrees from twelve.
- The hour hand does not stay on the 3. In 15 minutes it travels a quarter of the way to the 4, which is a quarter of 30 degrees, so 7.5 degrees past the 3.
- The gap between them is therefore 7.5 degrees.
- The general formula worth having: the angle equals the absolute value of 30 times the hour minus 5.5 times the minutes. Here that is 90 minus 82.5, which is 7.5.
Where candidates lose it
Answering zero, because you assumed both hands are on the 3. The hour hand moves continuously, and that is the entire point of the question. Say the formula afterwards to show it was not luck.
Expect next
- When is the next time the hands overlap exactly?
- How many times a day do the hands overlap?
- How many 0s are in 1000 factorial?
Reported by candidates at Centerview Partners (Investment Banking, Menlo Park, 2025). Source: Wall Street Oasis.
093Lilypads double every day and cover the pond on day 30. On what day was the pond half covered?Harris WilliamsGeneralist · Richmond · 2025
Say this
Day 29. If the area doubles every day, then the day before it was full it must have been exactly half. Work backwards, not forwards.
Then walk it
- Doubling means the step from half to full takes exactly one day.
- Full on day 30 therefore means half on day 29.
- The instinct to halve the number of days and say 15 is the trap. On day 15 the pond is about one thirty-two-thousandth covered, since it doubles fifteen more times.
- The general principle: in exponential growth, almost all of the accumulation happens at the very end. That is why the answer feels wrong.
- It is worth naming the finance version, because that is why the question gets asked: compounding, and the danger of extrapolating an exponential trend from a small base.
Where candidates lose it
Saying day 15. It is the reflex answer and it is wrong by a factor of thirty thousand. Answer in one second, then add the exponential-growth observation so it reads as understanding rather than recall.
Expect next
- What does that tell you about compounding?
- If I make 8 times my money in 6 years, what is my IRR?
- How would you spot a business at the steep part of that curve?
Reported by candidates at Harris Williams (Generalist, Richmond, 2025). 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.