There is nothing new in saying that data is gold. We all know this, every organization of every scale depends heavily on mining the data for generating growth and profit. And it is necessary for organizations today to keep a data science team in hand to handle complex data-related problems.
Even on the job aspirants' side, opportunities in the field of data science are very lucrative and attract widespread attention. To help such candidates, this blog highlights the top 22 Data Science Interview questions that can come in handy while appearing for a data science job interview.
Ques 1. What, in your opinion, accounts for Deep Learning's current surge in popularity?
Ans 1. Even though Deep Learning has been around for a while, the biggest advances in the field have only recently been made. There are two basic causes for this: the expansion of data produced from a variety of sources and the increasing amount of hardware needed to run these models, particularly Cloud GPU services.
Since GPUs are so much quicker than CPUs, we can now create deeper and larger deep learning models much more quickly than we could in the past.
Ques 2. Why Is Tensorflow the Most Popular Deep Learning Library?
Ans 2. Tensorflow has a faster compilation time than other Deep Learning libraries like Keras and Torch and has both C++ and Python APIs, making it simpler to work with. Tensorflow is compatible with both CPU and GPU-based computer systems.
Ques 3. What is sampling's main benefit? What procedures are employed in sampling?
Ans 3. Sampling is the process of choosing the group from which you will actually collect data for your study. For instance, you could interview a sample of 100 students if you were examining the viewpoints of students at your university. This saves both time and resources while conducting research.
There exist two categories of sampling techniques:
- Probability sampling: Random selection is a key component of probability sampling, which enables you to draw robust statistical conclusions about the entire group. Clustered sampling, Simple random sampling, and Stratified sampling are a few examples of this category.
- Non-probability sampling: This technique entails non-random selection based on practicality or other factors, making it simple to gather data. For example: Quota sampling, Convenience sampling, snowball sampling, etc.
Ques 4. What does variance in data science mean?
Ans 4. Variance is a sort of inaccuracy that develops in a Data Science model as it becomes overly complicated and learns features from data, along with any noise that may be present. Even though the data and underlying patterns and trends are relatively clear to spot, this type of inaccuracy can happen if the technique used to train the model is highly sophisticated. As a result, the model is extremely sensitive and does well on the training dataset but poorly on the testing dataset and on any other type of data. Variance typically results in overfitting and poor testing accuracy.
Ques 5. What makes supervised and unsupervised learning different?
Ans 5. The use of labeled datasets distinguishes the machine learning strategy known as supervised learning. These datasets are intended to "supervise" or "train" algorithms to correctly classify data or forecast outcomes. Labeled inputs and outputs allow the model to monitor its precision and improve over time. When using data mining, supervised learning may be divided into two categories of issues: classification and regression.
While unsupervised learning analyses and groups unlabeled data sets using machine learning techniques. These algorithms are referred to as "unsupervised" since they identify hidden patterns in data without the assistance of a person. Clustering, association, and dimensionality reduction are the three basic tasks that unsupervised learning models are utilized for.
Ques 6. What does bias in data science mean?
Ans 6. When an algorithm is used in a data science model, bias can happen because it is unable to fully capture the underlying patterns or trends in the data. In other words, this error happens when the algorithm creates a model based on simplistic assumptions since the input is too complex for it to comprehend. As a result, underfitting results in reduced accuracy. Regression algorithms like logistic and linear can result in substantial bias.
Ques 7. What exactly is dimensionality reduction?
Ans 7. The method of reducing the number of dimensions (fields) in a dataset involves making data and its field less redundant. Dimensionality reduction involves the removal of a few fields or columns from the dataset. But this is not carried out carelessly. In this method, the dimensions or fields are only removed after confirming that the remaining data will still be sufficient to briefly describe the related problems or can represent the whole data.
Ques 8. What are the popular libraries used in Data Science?
Ans 8. Below are the most popular libraries used in Data Science-
-TensorFlow: Provides flawless library management for parallel computing.
-SciPy: Mostly used for manipulating data, solving multidimensional programming problems, and visualizing data using graphs and charts.
-Matplotlib: Since it is free and open-source, it can be used in place of MATLAB, producing better results and using less memory.
-Pytorch: Best for projects using Deep Neural Networks and Machine Learning methods.
-Pandas: ETL (Extracting, Transforming, and Loading the datasets) capabilities are implemented in commercial applications using pandas.
Ques 9. Describe the operation of a recommender system?
Ans 9. Many consumer-facing, content-driven, online platforms use a recommender system to produce user-specific recommendations from a library of available information. Based on the users' behaviors on the site, these systems produce recommendations based on what they know about their preferences.
Imagine, for instance, that we have a movie streaming service that is comparable to Netflix or Amazon Prime. A user is said to enjoy watching action and horror films if they have already watched and enjoyed films in these genres. In that situation, it would be preferable to suggest these movies to this specific user. These suggestions can also be produced using the content that individuals with similar tastes enjoy watching.
Ques 10. Describe Normal Distribution?
Ans 10. A visualization tool called data distribution can be used to examine how data is dispersed or disseminated. Different methods can be used to distribute data. For instance, there can be a bias to the left or right, or everything might be mixed up.
Data, such as the mean, median, etc., can also be dispersed about a central value. This type of distribution, which resembles a bell-shaped curve, is unbiased in either the left or the right directions. The mean of this distribution is also the same as the median. A normal distribution is a name given to this type of distribution.
Ques 11. What does a decision tree mean in Data Science?
Ans 11. A supervised learning approach called a decision tree is utilized for both classification and regression. As a result, the dependent variable in this situation can have either a numerical value or a categorical value. Each node in a decision tree represents a test on an attribute, each edge represents the result of that test, and each leaf node contains the class label.
Ques 12. A Boltzmann machine: What is it?
Ans 12. Boltzmann machines have a straightforward learning process that enables them to find intriguing features in the training data that represent intricate regularities. The main purpose of the Boltzmann machine is to optimize the weights and quantities for the given problem. In networks with numerous layers of feature detectors, the learning algorithm is quite sluggish. The "Restricted Boltzmann Machines" approach is quicker than the others because it only uses one layer of feature detectors.
Ques 13. What is an auto-encoder?
Ans 13. Simple learning networks called auto-encoders work to convert inputs into outputs as accurately as possible. This indicates that our goal is to have the output be as close to the input as feasible. Between the input and the output, we add a few layers, and the sizes of these layers are less than the input layer. The auto-encoder receives unlabelled input which is then encoded to reconstruct the input.
Ques 14. What is the role of the Activation Function?
Ans 14. The neural network is given non-linearity through the activation function, which enables it to learn more complex functions. Without it, the neural network could only learn linear functions, which are combinations of the data it receives in a linear fashion. An artificial neuron's activation function produces an output in response to inputs.
Ques 15. Describe what backpropagation is and how it works?
Ans 15. A multilayer neural network's training algorithm is backpropagation. By moving the error from one end of the network to all of its weights, this method enables the computation of the gradient to be done quickly.
In Backpropagation, first training data is propagated forward then output and target are used to compute derivatives. To compute the derivative of an error with respect to output activation, backpropagation is done. Then in the end, using derivatives that have already been calculated as output weights are refreshed.
Ques 16. How should outlier values be handled?
Ans 16. Any graphical analysis technique, even univariate, can be used to detect outlier values. If there are only a few outlier values, each one can be evaluated separately, but if there are several, the values can be replaced with either the 99th or the 1st percentile values.
The most typical method for handling outlier values is to adjust the value so that it is inside a certain range or just remove the value
Ques 17. What is Exploding and Vanishing Gradient?
Ans 17. Exploding Gradients are erroneous gradients that expand exponentially during the training of an RNN, aggregate, and lead to very large modifications to the weights of the neural network model. At their most extreme, weight values have the potential to overflow and produce NaN values. Because of exploding gradient, your model will suffer as a result, making it unable to benefit from your training set of data.
While in Vanishing Gradient your slope may get too narrow, which makes training challenging. Long training sessions, subpar performance, and low precision are the results of a vanishing gradient.
Ques 18. What Sets Epoch, Batch, and Iteration Apart in Deep Learning?
Ans 18.
-Epoch: One iteration of the complete dataset is represented by an epoch (everything put into the training model).
-Batch: When we divide a dataset into multiple batches because we can't feed the complete dataset at once to the neural network, this is referred to as batching.
-Iteration: An epoch should run 50 iterations if the input data contains 10,000 photos and the batch size is 200. (10,000 divided by 50).
Ques 19. Define Cost function?
Ans 19. The cost function, which is often known as "loss" or "error," is a metric for gauging how well your model performs. It is employed to calculate the output layer's error during backpropagation. In order to use it for the various training functions, we push that error backward through the neural network.
Ques 20. What is the repercussion of setting a wrong learning rate?
Ans 20. The model's training will advance very slowly if your learning rate is too low because we are just making minor weight updates. Before reaching the minimum point, there will be a need for several revisions. On the other hand, the loss function exhibits unwanted divergent behavior if the learning rate is set too high because weights are drastically updated. It could diverge or fail to converge respectively.
Ques 21. How Often Does an Algorithm Need to Be Updated?
Ans 21. An algorithm has to be updated when:
- In order for the model to change as more data flows via the infrastructure
- The source of the underlying data is evolving.
- There is a non-stationarity instance.
- The algorithm is inefficient and produces inaccurate results.
Ques 22. How do you handle missing values in a dataset?
Ans 22. After finding the variables with missing values, the extent of the missing values is determined. If any patterns emerge, the analyst must focus on them since they may yield fascinating and valuable business insights.
If no patterns are found, it is possible to ignore the missing numbers entirely or to impute them using mean or median values. a default value is being assigned, which can be the mean, minimum, or maximum value. Entering the data is crucial.
If the variable is categorical, the default value is chosen. A default value is given to the missing variable. Give the mean value for a normal distribution if you have a distribution of data.
Else you can also respond that you would drop the variable in place of processing the missing values if 80% of the values for a variable are missing.
Conclusion-
Data Science is a very broad discipline that covers a variety of subjects, including Machine Learning, Deep Learning, Data Mining, Data Analysis, and Data Visualization. But most significantly, it is built on the foundation of mathematical ideas like Linear Algebra and Statistical analysis.
So if you have an interview scheduled soon, don’t forget to brush up on your mathematical concepts with the coding and other practices.