Question: “How many bicycle tires are sold each year in China?”

An insider tip: With these type of questions, the interviewer isn’t really looking for the answer. They’re looking to see how you think and if, when you’re put you on the spot, you fold under the pressure. You take a big deep breath and then try to solve the question by thinking out loud and making hypotheses or assumptions.

A smart answer: “I’m not exactly sure how many people there are in China, but let’s imagine there’s two billion. Let’s imagine that half of them ride bicycles, so that’s a billion bicycles. How many need new tires every year? Let’s imagine it’s 25%, so 250,000,000 bicycle tires. Of course we have to remember that each bicycle has two tires, so multiply by two to get half a billion.”