Machine Learning Interview Questions

1) What do you understand by Machine learning?

Machine learning is the form of Artificial Intelligence that deals with system programming
and automates data analysis to enable computers to learn and act through experiences
without being explicitly programmed.

For example, Robots are coded in such a way that they can perform the tasks based on
data they collect from sensors. They automatically learn programs from data and improve
with experiences.

2) Differentiate between inductive learning and deductive learning?

In inductive learning, the model learns by examples from a set of observed instances to
draw a generalized conclusion. On the other side, in deductive learning, the model first
applies the conclusion, and then the conclusion is drawn.

o Inductive learning is the method of using observations to draw conclusions.

o Deductive learning is the method of using conclusions to form observations.

For example, if we have to explain to a kid that playing with fire can cause burns. There
are two ways we can explain this to a kid; we can show training examples of various fire
accidents or images of burnt people and label them as "Hazardous". In this case, a kid will
understand with the help of examples and not play with the fire. It is the form of Inductive
machine learning. The other way to teach the same thing is to let the kid play with the fire
and wait to see what happens. If the kid gets a burn, it will teach the kid not to play with
fire and avoid going near it. It is the form of deductive learning.

3) What is the difference between Data Mining and Machine

Learning?
Data mining can be described as the process in which the structured data tries to abstract
knowledge or interesting unknown patterns. During this process, machine learning
algorithms are used.
Machine learning represents the study, design, and development of the algorithms
which provide the ability to the processors to learn without being explicitly programmed.

4) What is the meaning of Overfitting in Machine learning?

Overfitting can be seen in machine learning when a statistical model describes random
error or noise instead of the underlying relationship. Overfitting is usually observed when
a model is excessively complex. It happens because of having too many parameters
concerning the number of training data types. The model displays poor performance,
which has been overfitted.

5) Why overfitting occurs?

The possibility of overfitting occurs when the criteria used for training the model is not as
per the criteria used to judge the efficiency of a model.

6) What is the method to avoid overfitting?

Overfitting occurs when we have a small dataset, and a model is trying to learn from it. By
using a large amount of data, overfitting can be avoided. But if we have a small database
and are forced to build a model based on that, then we can use a technique known
as cross-validation. In this method, a model is usually given a dataset of a known data
on which training data set is run and dataset of unknown data against which the model is
tested. The primary aim of cross-validation is to define a dataset to "test" the model in
the training phase. If there is sufficient data, 'Isotonic Regression' is used to prevent
overfitting.

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7) Differentiate supervised and unsupervised machine learning.

o In supervised machine learning, the machine is trained using labeled data. Then a
new dataset is given into the learning model so that the algorithm provides a
 positive outcome by analyzing the labeled data. For example, we first require to
label the data which is necessary to train the model while performing classification.
o In the unsupervised machine learning, the machine is not trained using labeled
data and let the algorithms make the decisions without any corresponding output
variables.

8) How does Machine Learning differ from Deep Learning?

o Machine learning is all about algorithms which are used to parse data, learn from
that data, and then apply whatever they have learned to make informed decisions.
o Deep learning is a part of machine learning, which is inspired by the structure of
the human brain and is particularly useful in feature detection.

9) How is KNN different from k-means?

KNN or K nearest neighbors is a supervised algorithm which is used for classification
purpose. In KNN, a test sample is given as the class of the majority of its nearest neighbors.
On the other side, K-means is an unsupervised algorithm which is mainly used for
clustering. In k-means clustering, it needs a set of unlabeled points and a threshold only.
The algorithm further takes unlabeled data and learns how to cluster it into groups by
computing the mean of the distance between different unlabeled points.

10) What are the different types of Algorithm methods in Machine

Learning?
The different types of algorithm methods in machine earning are:

o Supervised Learning
o Semi-supervised Learning
o Unsupervised Learning
o Transduction
o Reinforcement Learning
 11) What do you understand by Reinforcement Learning
technique?
Reinforcement learning is an algorithm technique used in Machine Learning. It involves
an agent that interacts with its environment by producing actions & discovering errors or
rewards. Reinforcement learning is employed by different software and machines to
search for the best suitable behavior or path it should follow in a specific situation. It
usually learns on the basis of reward or penalty given for every action it performs.

12) What is the trade-off between bias and variance?

Both bias and variance are errors. Bias is an error due to erroneous or overly simplistic
assumptions in the learning algorithm. It can lead to the model under-fitting the data,
making it hard to have high predictive accuracy and generalize the knowledge from the
training set to the test set.

Classification Regression

o Classification is the task to predict a o Regression is the task to predict a continuous quantity.
discrete class label.

o In a classification problem, data is o A regression problem needs the prediction of a quantity.

labeled into one of two or more classes.

o A classification having problem with two o A regression problem containing multiple input variables i
classes is called binary classification, and called a multivariate regression problem.
more than two classes is called multi-
class classification
o Classifying an email as spam or non- o Predicting the price of a stock over a period of time is
spam is an example of a classification regression problem.
problem.

Variance is an error due to too much complexity in the learning algorithm. It leads to the
algorithm being highly sensitive to high degrees of variation in the training data, which
can lead the model to overfit the data.

To optimally reduce the number of errors, we will need to tradeoff bias and variance.

13) How do classification and regression differ?

14) What are the five popular algorithms we use in Machine

Learning?
Five popular algorithms are:

Decision Trees

o Probabilistic Networks
o Neural Networks
o Support Vector Machines
o Nearest Neighbor

15) What do you mean by ensemble learning?

Numerous models, such as classifiers are strategically made and combined to solve a
specific computational program which is known as ensemble learning. The ensemble
methods are also known as committee-based learning or learning multiple classifier
systems. It trains various hypotheses to fix the same issue. One of the most suitable
examples of ensemble modeling is the random forest trees where several decision trees
are used to predict outcomes. It is used to improve the classification, function
approximation, prediction, etc. of a model.

16) What is a model selection in Machine Learning?

The process of choosing models among diverse mathematical models, which are used to
define the same data is known as Model Selection. Model learning is applied to the fields
of statistics, data mining, and machine learning.

17) What are the three stages of building the hypotheses or model
in machine learning?
There are three stages to build hypotheses or model in machine learning:

o Model building
It chooses a suitable algorithm for the model and trains it according to the
requirement of the problem.
o Applying the model
It is responsible for checking the accuracy of the model through the test data.
o Model testing
It performs the required changes after testing and apply the final model.

18) What according to you, is the standard approach to supervised

learning?
In supervised learning, the standard approach is to split the set of example into the
training set and the test.

19) Describe 'Training set' and 'training Test'.

In various areas of information of machine learning, a set of data is used to discover the
potentially predictive relationship, which is known as 'Training Set'. The training set is an
example that is given to the learner. Besides, the 'Test set' is used to test the accuracy of
the hypotheses generated by the learner. It is the set of instances held back from the
learner. Thus, the training set is distinct from the test set.

20) What are the common ways to handle missing data in a

dataset?
Missing data is one of the standard factors while working with data and handling. It is
considered as one of the greatest challenges faced by the data analysts. There are many
ways one can impute the missing values. Some of the common methods to handle missing
data in datasets can be defined as deleting the rows, replacing with
mean/median/mode, predicting the missing values, assigning a unique category,
using algorithms that support missing values, etc.

21) What do you understand by ILP?

ILP stands for Inductive Logic Programming. It is a part of machine learning which uses
logic programming. It aims at searching patterns in data which can be used to build
predictive models. In this process, the logic programs are assumed as a hypothesis.

22) What are the necessary steps involved in Machine Learning

Project?
There are several essential steps we must follow to achieve a good working model while
doing a Machine Learning Project. Those steps may include parameter tuning, data
preparation, data collection, training the model, model evaluation, and prediction,
etc.

23) Describe Precision and Recall?

Precision and Recall both are the measures which are used in the information retrieval
domain to measure how good an information retrieval system reclaims the related data
as requested by the user.
Precision can be said as a positive predictive value. It is the fraction of relevant instances
among the received instances.

On the other side, recall is the fraction of relevant instances that have been retrieved over
the total amount or relevant instances. The recall is also known as sensitivity.

24) What do you understand by Decision Tree in Machine

Learning?
Decision Trees can be defined as the Supervised Machine Learning, where the data is
continuously split according to a certain parameter. It builds classification or regression
models as similar as a tree structure, with datasets broken up into ever smaller subsets
while developing the decision tree. The tree can be defined by two entities,
namely decision nodes, and leaves. The leaves are the decisions or the outcomes, and
the decision nodes are where the data is split. Decision trees can manage both categorical
and numerical data.

25) What are the functions of Supervised Learning?

o Classification
o Speech Recognition
o Regression
o Predict Time Series
o Annotate Strings

26) What are the functions of Unsupervised Learning?

o Finding clusters of the data

o Finding low-dimensional representations of the data
o Finding interesting directions in data
o Finding novel observations/ database cleaning
o Finding interesting coordinates and correlations
27) What do you understand by algorithm independent machine
learning?
Algorithm independent machine learning can be defined as machine learning, where
mathematical foundations are independent of any particular classifier or learning
algorithm.

28) Describe the classifier in machine learning.

A classifier is a case of a hypothesis or discrete-valued function which is used to assign
class labels to particular data points. It is a system that inputs a vector of discrete or
continuous feature values and outputs a single discrete value, the class.

29) What do you mean by Genetic Programming?

Genetic Programming (GP) is almost similar to an Evolutionary Algorithm, a subset of
machine learning. Genetic programming software systems implement an algorithm that
uses random mutation, a fitness function, crossover, and multiple generations of evolution
to resolve a user-defined task. The genetic programming model is based on testing and
choosing the best option among a set of results.

30) What is SVM in machine learning? What are the classification

methods that SVM can handle?
SVM stands for Support Vector Machine. SVM are supervised learning models with an
associated learning algorithm which analyze the data used for classification and
regression analysis.

The classification methods that SVM can handle are:

o Combining binary classifiers

o Modifying binary to incorporate multiclass learning
 31) How will you explain a linked list and an array?
An array is a datatype which is widely implemented as a default type, in almost all the
modern programming languages. It is used to store data of a similar type.

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But there are many use-cases where we don't know the quantity of data to be stored. For
such cases, advanced data structures are required, and one such data structure is linked
list.

There are some points which explain how the linked list is different from an array:

ARRAY LINKED LIST

o An array is a group of elements of a similar o Linked List is an ordered group of elements of

data type. the same type, which are connected using
pointers.

o Elements are stored consecutively in the o New elements can be stored anywhere in
memory. memory.

o An Array supports Random Access. It o Linked List supports Sequential Access. It

means that the elements can be accessed means that we have to traverse the complete
directly using their index value, like arr[0] linked list, up to that element sequentially which
for 1st element, arr[5] for 6th element, etc. element/node we want to access in a linked list.
As a result, accessing elements in an array To access the nth element of a linked list, the
is fast with constant time complexity of time complexity is O(n).
O(1).

o Memory is allocated at compile time as o Memory is allocated at runtime, whenever a new

soon as the array is declared. It is known node is added. It is known as Dynamic Memory
as Static Memory Allocation. Allocation.
o Insertion and Deletion operation takes o In case of a linked list, a new element is stored at
more time in the array, as the memory the first free available memory location.
locations are consecutive and fixed. Thus, Insertion and Deletion operations are fast
in the linked list.

o Size of the array must be declared at the o Size of a Linked list is variable. It grows at runtime
time of array declaration. whenever nodes are added to it.

32) What do you understand by the Confusion Matrix?

A confusion matrix is a table which is used for summarizing the performance of a
classification algorithm. It is also known as the error matrix.

Where,

TN= True Negative

TP= True Positive
FN= False Negative
FP= False Positive

33) Explain True Positive, True Negative, False Positive, and False
Negative in Confusion Matrix with an example.
 o True Positive
When a model correctly predicts the positive class, it is said to be a true positive.
For example, Umpire gives a Batsman NOT OUT when he is NOT OUT.
o True Negative
When a model correctly predicts the negative class, it is said to be a true negative.
For example, Umpire gives a Batsman OUT when he is OUT.
o False Positive
When a model incorrectly predicts the positive class, it is said to be a false positive.
It is also known as 'Type I' error.
For example, Umpire gives a Batsman NOT OUT when he is OUT.
o False Negative
When a model incorrectly predicts the negative class, it is said to be a false
negative. It is also known as 'Type II' error.
For example, Umpire gives a Batsman OUT when he is NOT OUT.

34) What according to you, is more important between model

accuracy and model performance?
Model accuracy is a subset of model performance. The accuracy of the model is directly
proportional to the performance of the model. Thus, better the performance of the model,
more accurate are the predictions.

35) What is Bagging and Boosting?

o Bagging is a process in ensemble learning which is used for improving unstable

estimation or classification schemes.
o Boosting methods are used sequentially to reduce the bias of the combined model.

36) What are the similarities and differences between bagging and
boosting in Machine Learning?
Similarities of Bagging and Boosting

o Both are the ensemble methods to get N learns from 1 learner.

o Both generate several training data sets with random sampling.
o Both generate the final result by taking the average of N learners.
o Both reduce variance and provide higher scalability.

Differences between Bagging and Boosting

o Although they are built independently, but for Bagging, Boosting tries to add new
models which perform well where previous models fail.
o Only Boosting determines the weight for the data to tip the scales in favor of the
most challenging cases.
o Only Boosting tries to reduce bias. Instead, Bagging may solve the problem of
over-fitting while boosting can increase it.

37) What do you understand by Cluster Sampling?

Cluster Sampling is a process of randomly selecting intact groups within a defined
population, sharing similar characteristics. Cluster sample is a probability where each
sampling unit is a collection or cluster of elements.

For example, if we are clustering the total number of managers in a set of companies, in
that case, managers (sample) will represent elements and companies will represent
clusters.

38) What do you know about Bayesian Networks?

Bayesian Networks also referred to as 'belief networks' or 'casual networks', are used to
represent the graphical model for probability relationship among a set of variables.

For example, a Bayesian network can be used to represent the probabilistic relationships
between diseases and symptoms. As per the symptoms, the network can also compute
the probabilities of the presence of various diseases.
Efficient algorithms can perform inference or learning in Bayesian networks. Bayesian
networks which relate the variables (e.g., speech signals or protein sequences) are called
dynamic Bayesian networks.

39) Which are the two components of Bayesian logic program?

A Bayesian logic program consists of two components:

o Logical
It contains a set of Bayesian Clauses, which capture the qualitative structure of the
domain.
o Quantitative
It is used to encode quantitative information about the domain.

40) Describe dimension reduction in machine learning.

Dimension reduction is the process which is used to reduce the number of random
variables under considerations.

Dimension reduction can be divided into feature selection and extraction.

41) Why instance-based learning algorithm sometimes referred to

as Lazy learning algorithm?
In machine learning, lazy learning can be described as a method where induction and
generalization processes are delayed until classification is performed. Because of the same
property, an instance-based learning algorithm is sometimes called lazy learning
algorithm.

42) What do you understand by the F1 score?

The F1 score represents the measurement of a model's performance. It is referred to as a
weighted average of the precision and recall of a model. The results tending to 1 are
considered as the best, and those tending to 0 are the worst. It could be used in
classification tests, where true negatives don't matter much.

43) How is a decision tree pruned?

Pruning is said to occur in decision trees when the branches which may consist of weak
predictive power are removed to reduce the complexity of the model and increase the
predictive accuracy of a decision tree model. Pruning can occur bottom-up and top-down,
with approaches such as reduced error pruning and cost complexity pruning.

Reduced error pruning is the simplest version, and it replaces each node. If it is unable to
decrease predictive accuracy, one should keep it pruned. But, it usually comes pretty close
to an approach that would optimize for maximum accuracy.

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44) What are the Recommended Systems?

Recommended System is a sub-directory of information filtering systems. It predicts the
preferences or rankings offered by a user to a product. According to the preferences, it
provides similar recommendations to a user. Recommendation systems are widely used
in movies, news, research articles, products, social tips, music, etc.

45) What do you understand by Underfitting?

Underfitting is an issue when we have a low error in both the training set and the testing
set. Few algorithms work better for interpretations but fail for better predictions.

46) When does regularization become necessary in Machine

Learning?
Regularization is necessary whenever the model begins to overfit/ underfit. It is a cost
term for bringing in more features with the objective function. Hence, it tries to push the
coefficients for many variables to zero and reduce cost term. It helps to reduce model
complexity so that the model can become better at predicting (generalizing).

47) What is Regularization? What kind of problems does

regularization solve?
A regularization is a form of regression, which constrains/ regularizes or shrinks the
coefficient estimates towards zero. In other words, it discourages learning a more complex
or flexible model to avoid the risk of overfitting. It reduces the variance of the model,
without a substantial increase in its bias.

Regularization is used to address overfitting problems as it penalizes the loss function by

adding a multiple of an L1 (LASSO) or an L2 (Ridge) norm of weights vector w.

48) Why do we need to convert categorical variables into factor?

Which functions are used to perform the conversion?
Most Machine learning algorithms require number as input. That is why we convert
categorical values into factors to get numerical values. We also don't have to deal with
dummy variables.

The functions factor() and as.factor() are used to convert variables into factors.

49) Do you think that treating a categorical variable as a continuous

variable would result in a better predictive model?
For a better predictive model, the categorical variable can be considered as a continuous
variable only when the variable is ordinal in nature.

50) How is machine learning used in day-to-day life?

Most of the people are already using machine learning in their everyday life. Assume that
you are engaging with the internet, you are actually expressing your preferences, likes,
dislikes through your searches. All these things are picked up by cookies coming on your
computer, from this, the behavior of a user is evaluated. It helps to increase the progress
of a user through the internet and provide similar suggestions.

The navigation system can also be considered as one of the examples where we are using
machine learning to calculate a distance between two places using optimization
techniques. Surely, people are going to more engage with machine learning in the near
future.