Turnitin Problem Solving Exercise

Welcome! We're excited you've decided to talk with us about a position on our engineering team.

The purpose of this exercise is so we can have a conversation about your technical background and abilities. We think that asking you to code on a whiteboard during an interview isn't a great way to have a conversation. And even if we sit down and pair during an interview it's a higher pressure situation than it could be.

Instead we ask that you read these instructions and do at most a few hours of work, on your time, to complete the exercise. During the interview we'll talk about decisions you've made, the resulting application, and how you might change it given different circumstances.

Below are two sections:

• Instructions: the problems we'd like you to solve along with expectations we have about your solution.
• Logistics: constraints around the problem, and how we'd like you to communicate your solution to us

Instructions

Please solve the following two problems as described below using Java 11 preferably (or older versions if necessary). Feel free to create classes, structures, interfaces, or any other construct needed to solve this.

Sample Data

PHRASES = {  
  { "1", ["afterward", "whenever", "however", "until", "as soon as", "as long as", "while", "again", "also", "besides"]},  
  { "2", ["therefore", "thus", "consequently", "as a result", "for this reason", "so", "so that", "accordingly", "because"]},  
  { "3", ["in addition to", "so", "moreover"]},
  { "4", ["in general", "for the most part", "as a general rule", "on the whole", "usually", "typically", "in summary"]}  
}

INPUT_TEXT = "Afterwards, soon yellow bird landed on the tall tree in addition to a lazy tortoise.  However, he had a " +
             "read beak. In addition to white the patches on the wings, he was completely yellow. In summary, it was yellow bird. " +
             "In summary, it did not sing."

Problem 1

Get the frequencies of each phrase from PHRASES above, ie how many times the phrase appears in the text as described in INPUT_TEXT. Of course, it should be able to work with any text.

For example, If you were given the following:

PHRASES  = {{ "1", ["until, "so", "usually"]}}
INPUT_TEXT = "So, I have not seen this. So, usually, I don't follow all trends."

It will create the following output:

frequencies:  "until":0, "so": 2, "usually":1

Problem 2

Based on the phrases in PHRASES, create a unique vocabulary of phrases, and generate a vector that represents the frequency of each phrase for the given text.

For example, if we have the following:

PHRASES = {{"1", ["until, "so", "usually", "so"]}}
INPUT_TEXT = "So, I have not seen this. So, usually, I don't follow all trends."

It will have the following output:

vocabulary = ["so", "until", "usually"]
vector = [2, 0, 1]

Logistics

##1. Timeframe

You should take a max of three hours to complete this exercise. We want to be both respectful of your time and fair to other candidates who might not have a whole weekend to work on it.

##2. Git

You will need to use git for this exercise. To get these instructions and a repo with test scripts do the following:

1. Create a Github account if you don't already have one. For the examples below we assume a user pusheen.
2. Clone our repository:

# Using ssh
$ git clone [email protected]:turnitin/problem-solving-exercise.git

# Using https
$ git clone https://[email protected]/turnitin/problem-solving-exercise.git

##3. Remote

Once you are done you can put your solution in your own repository by adding it as a remote and pushing to it.

1. Create a new repo via the github UI, let's assume you call it problem-solving-exercise.git to mirror ours.
2. If possible use a private repo. If you've run out of private repos on github them no worries, we'd just like to make sure that every candidate's work is his or her own.
3. Add your repo as a remote and push:

$ git remote add myrepo [email protected]:pusheen/problem-solving-exercise.git
$ git push myrepo master

##4. Access

Provide following users read access to your repository

• skumar-tii
• <>

##5. Notify us

At least a day before your in-person interview, email [email protected] your repo address.