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40 ML Interview Questions

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51 views12 pages

40 ML Interview Questions

Uploaded by

kamannanagesh51
Copyright
© © All Rights Reserved
We take content rights seriously. If you suspect this is your content, claim it here.
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40 ML Interview

Questions that
You Must Know
Along with the solutions
Q1. Why do we take the harmonic mean of
precision and recall when finding the F1-
score and not simply the mean of the two
metrics?

The F1-score, the harmonic mean of precision and recall,


balances the trade-off between precision and recall. The
harmonic mean penalizes extreme values more than the
arithmetic mean.

This is crucial for cases where one of the metrics is


significantly lower than the other. In classification tasks,
precision and recall may have an inverse relationship;
therefore, the harmonic mean ensures that the F1-score
gives equal weight to precision and recall, providing a
more balanced evaluation metric.

2
F1 Score =
1 + 1
Recall Precision
Q2. Why does Logistic regression have
regression in its name even if it is used
specifically for Classification?
Logistic regression doesn’t directly classify but uses a
linear model to estimate the probability of an event (0-1).
We then choose a threshold (like 50%) to convert this to
categories like ‘yes’ or ‘no’. So, despite the ‘regression’ in
its name, it ultimately tells us which class something
belongs to.
Q3. What is the purpose of activation
functions in neural networks?
Activation functions introduce non-linearity to neural
networks, allowing them to learn complex patterns and
relationships in data. Without activation functions, neural
networks would reduce to linear models, limiting their
ability to capture intricate features. Popular activation
functions include sigmoid, tanh, and ReLU, each
introducing non-linearity at different levels.

These non-linear transformations enable neural networks


to approximate complex functions, making them powerful
tools for image recognition and natural language
processing.

Input layer Hidden layer Output layer


Q4. If you do not know whether your data is
scaled, and you have to work on the
classification problem without looking at the
data, then out of Random Forest and Logistic
Regression, which technique will you use
and why?

In this scenario, Random Forest would be a more suitable


choice. Logistic Regression is sensitive to the scale of
input features, and unscaled features can affect its
performance.

On the other hand, Random Forest is less impacted by


feature scaling due to its ensemble nature. Random
Forest builds decision trees independently, and the
scaling of features doesn’t influence the splitting
decisions across trees. Therefore, when dealing with
unscaled data and limited insights, Random Forest would
likely yield more reliable results.
Q5. In a binary classification problem aimed
at identifying cancer in individuals, if you
had to prioritize one performance metric
over the other, considering you don’t want to
risk any person’s life, which metric would
you be more willing to compromise on,
Precision or Recall, and why?

In identifying cancer, recall (sensitivity) is more critical


than precision. Maximizing recall ensures that the model
correctly identifies as many positive cases (cancer
instances) as possible, reducing the chances of false
negatives (missed cases).

False negatives in cancer identification could have severe


consequences. While precision is important to minimize
false positives, prioritizing recall helps ensure a higher
sensitivity to actual positive cases in the medical domain.
Q6. What is the significance of P-value when
building a Machine Learning model?
P-values are used in traditional statistics to determine the
significance of a particular effect or parameter. P-value
can be used to find the more relevant features in making
predictions. The closer the value to 0, the more relevant
the feature.
Q7. How does skewness in the distribution of
a dataset affect the performance or behavior
of machine learning models?
Skewness in the distribution of a dataset can significantly
impact the performance and behavior of machine learning
models. Here’s an explanation of its effects and how to
handle skewed data:

Effects of Skewed Data on Machine Learning Models:

Bias in Model Performance: Skewed data can introduce


bias in model training, especially with algorithms sensitive
to class distribution. Models might be biased towards the
majority class, leading to poor predictions for the minority
class in classification tasks.

Impact on Algorithms: Skewed data can affect the


decision boundaries learned by models. For instance, in
logistic regression or SVMs, the decision boundary might
be biased towards the dominant class when one class
dominates the other.

Prediction Errors: Skewed data can result in inflated


accuracy metrics. Models might achieve high accuracy by
simply predicting the majority class yet fail to detect
patterns in the minority class.
Q8. Describe a situation where ensemble
methods could be useful.
Ensemble methods are particularly useful when dealing with
complex and diverse datasets or aiming to improve a model’s
robustness and generalization.

For example, in a healthcare scenario where diagnosing a


disease involves multiple types of medical tests (features),
each with its strengths and weaknesses, an ensemble of
models, such as Random Forest or Gradient Boosting, could
be employed.

Combining these models helps mitigate individual biases and


uncertainties, resulting in a more reliable and accurate overall
prediction.
Q9. How would you detect outliers in a
dataset?
Outliers can be detected using various methods, including:

Z-Score: Identify data points with a Z-score beyond a certain


threshold.

IQR (Interquartile Range): Flag data points outside the 1.5


times the IQR range.

Visualization: Plotting box plots, histograms, or scatter plots


can reveal data points significantly deviating from the norm.

Machine Learning Models: Outliers may be detected using


models trained to identify anomalies, like one-class SVMs or
Isolation Forests.
Q10. Explain the Bias-Variance Tradeoff in
Machine Learning. How does it impact model
performance?

The bias-variance tradeoff refers to the delicate balance


between the error introduced by bias and variance in machine
learning models. A model with high bias oversimplifies the
underlying patterns, leading to poor performance in training and
unseen data. Conversely, a model with high variance captures
noise in the training data and fails to generalize to new data.
Balancing bias and variance is crucial. Reducing bias often
increases variance and vice versa. Optimal model performance is
finding the right tradeoff to achieve low training and test data
error.
For more information, visit the article

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