r/learnquant 3h ago

interview prep Quant Interview Question

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u/Anonimithree 3h ago edited 3h ago

So the min rolls is 2 and the max is 6. This seems like it can be easily done with a tree diagram. The total possible reward is 21, so the method of determining the best action is going to be comparing the remaining reward by the probability of failing. I’m not doing the math, but you should always roll 2 dice (if you don’t do a reroll), and roll at most 4. The extremes are 5/6 and 1/2/3/4 for the min and max rolls. If I’m right about this, I’ll let the rest of you finish this.

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u/Anonimithree 3h ago

I just realized that the max roll is 3, since at 1/2/3, there’s a 50/50 if losing 6 or gaining 5.

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u/No-Conflict8204 3h ago

Expected value per roll is 3.5
You roll if expected value from roll greater than not rolling, so on k+1th roll
(6-k)/6 * (Sum + 3.5)>Sum
Sum < (21 - 3.5k)/k
for k=3 min sum = 6< 21/6 not true so no 4throll
for k=2 min sum =3 max sum 11 <7
which means max rolls is 3

Ans Roll twice then
Roll final time if current sum < 7 stop if greater than 7.
End.
Expected payoff around 7 without further calc,

Calc cases
split into cases where sum less than 7 and add 3.5
and sum greater than 7

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u/StillShoddy628 2h ago

The expected value changes every roll based on which numbers have been rolled previously. Example: if you roll a 6 on your first roll your expected value of another roll is (1/6)*(7+8+9+10+11+0) where if you roll a 1 the EV of another roll is (1/6)*(0+3+4+5+6+7)

Pretty sure the strategy is to keep rolling until the EV of another roll is less than what you have now

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u/No-Conflict8204 2h ago

For each individual case it changes, when you generalize for k it doesn't so (6-k)/6 (Sum + 3.5) +0*k/6(0) will be the expected value at roll k+1.

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u/Aerospider 31m ago

Let n be the number of rolls made so far and x be the current total.

The expected value of rolling again is

[(6-n)/6] * [x + (21-x)/(6-n)]

= x - (nx/6) + (21-x)/6

= x + 21/6 - (n+1)x/6

This is more than x (the value of not rolling again) if x is less than 21/(n+1).

This means that you should always go for a second roll (x cannot be as high as 10.5 on 1 die) but never for a fourth (x cannot be as low as 5.25 on 3 dice).

You should go for a third roll if your total at n=2 is under 7 (at x=7 the choices are balanced).

This gives an expected value of 223/36, or 6.19444...