Most Asked Machine Learning Interview Questions

Chandni Ansari
JanBask Training
Published in
6 min readOct 27, 2021
Photo by Tima Miroshnichenko from Pexels

Companies use new-age technologies like artificial intelligence (AI) and machine learning to make information and services more accessible. These technologies are being increasingly adopted in banking, finance, retail, manufacturing, healthcare, and more.

Machine learning is a crucial aspect of the data science interview process that can help you become effective data scientists, machine learning engineers, or data engineers, among other things.

Some in-demand organizational roles that embrace AI include data scientists, artificial intelligence engineers, machine learning engineers, and data analysts. If you want to apply for jobs like these, you should be aware of the types of machine learning interview questions that recruiters and hiring managers might ask.

This article walks you through some of the most common machine learning interview questions and answers you’ll encounter on your road to landing your ideal job.

  1. What is machine learning?

Machine learning is a discipline of computer science that works with system programming to learn and improve automatically over time. For instance, robots are programmed to complete a task depending on data collected from sensors. It learns programs from data on its own.

2. What does the term “overfitting” in machine learning mean?

Overfitting occurs when a statistical model describes random error or noise rather than the underlying relationship in machine learning. When a model is very complex, overfitting is likely to occur. It occurs as a result of having too many parameters relating to the amount of training data types. The model has been overfitted, resulting in poor performance.

3. When it comes to data mining and machine learning, what’s the difference?

Data mining is a method that attempts to abstract information or interesting unknown patterns from organized data. Machine learning algorithms are used in this procedure. Machine learning is known as the study, design, and development of algorithms that allow processors to learn without being explicitly programmed.

4. What Are the Three Stages of Machine Learning Model Construction?

The following are the three stages of creating a machine learning model:

  • Model Construction
  • Please select an appropriate algorithm for the model and train it to meet the requirements.
  • Model Validation
  • Examine the model’s accuracy using the test data.
  • Putting the Model to Work

After testing, make the necessary modifications and use the final model for real-time projects.

It’s crucial to note that the model should be examined every now and then to ensure it’s still working correctly. It should be revised to ensure that it is current.

5. What is the primary distinction between supervised, unsupervised, and semi-supervised machine learning?

Supervised Learning: After a model has been trained on labeled data, it provides predictions based on the previously labeled data. The data must be trained by a supervisor (labels). Text classification, for example.

Unsupervised Learning occurs when a model is trained on data that hasn’t been labeled. The model looks for patterns and relationships in the data and categorizes the classes accordingly. We don’t have any data that has been labeled.

Semi-supervised Learning is a sort of machine learning that trains a model with a small amount of labeled data and a considerable amount of unlabeled data. The idea is to use labeled data to help classify some of the unlabeled data.

6. With a simple example, explain false negative, false positive, true negative, and true positive.

Consider the following fire emergency scenario:

  • True Positive: If the smoke detector goes off in the event of a fire.
  • Fire is a good thing, and the system’s forecast is correct.
  • If the alarm goes off, but there is no fire, it is a false positive.
  • The plan projected that the fire would be cheerful, which is incorrect, and therefore the forecast is wrong.
  • If the alarm does not go off, but there is a fire, this is a False Negative.
  • The system anticipated that fire would be negative, which was incorrect because there was a fire.
  • True Negative: If there was no fire and the alarm did not go off.
  • This prophecy came true since the fire is negative.

7. What are the various kinds of data that are used in Machine Learning?

There are two different kinds of data. Data that is both structured and unstructured.

  • Structured Data: Before being placed in data storage, this data is predetermined, labeled, and well-formatted. Table of Student Records, for example.
  • Unstructured Data: Unstructured data is stored in its original format and is not processed until needed — text, audio, video, emails, and so on.

8. What distinguishes KNN from k-means?

The KNN algorithm, often known as K nearest neighbors, is a supervised classification technique. A test sample in KNN is defined as the majority of its nearest neighbors’ class. K-means, on the other hand, is an unsupervised technique that is primarily used for clustering. Only a set of unlabeled points and a threshold are required for k-means clustering. The algorithm then learns to cluster unlabeled data into groups by computing the mean distance between various unlabeled points.

9. In machine learning, what are the three stages of developing hypotheses or models?

In machine learning, there are three stages of building hypotheses or models:

  • Construction of a model: It selects an appropriate method and trains it to meet the problem’s requirements.
  • Apply the model: Applying the model It is in charge of checking its accuracy using test data.
  • Validation of models: After testing, it makes the necessary changes and applies the final model.

10. When working with a data set, how do you choose essential variables?

There are several methods for selecting critical variables from a data set, including:

  • Before deciding on crucial factors, identify and eliminate linked variables.
  • The variables might be chosen using the ‘p’ values from Linear Regression Forward, Backward, and Stepwise selection methods.
  • Regression with a Lasso
  • Random Variable chart for the forest and plot
  • Top features can be chosen depending on the amount of information gained for the set of features offered.

11. What Role Does Supervised Machine Learning Play in Today’s Businesses?

The following are some examples of supervised machine learning applications:

  • Detection of Spam Email: We use historical data to train the model, which comprises emails classified as spam or non-spam. The model receives this labeled data as input.
  • Diagnosis in Health Care: A model can be taught to detect whether or not a person is suffering from an illness by supplying photos of the disease.
  • Analysis of Public Opinion: This is the process of mining documents with algorithms to identify whether they have a positive, neutral, or negative sentiment.
  • Detection of Fraud: We can discover instances of probable fraud by training the algorithm to recognize suspicious patterns.

12. What are the two parts of the Bayesian logic program?

There are two parts to the Bayesian logic program. The first is a logical component, which consists of Bayesian Clauses that capture the domain’s qualitative structure. The second component is a quantitative one that encodes the domain’s quantitative data.

13. What is batch statistical learning, and how does it work?

Statistical learning approaches allow you to train a function or predictor from a set of seen data that may be used to predict data that hasn’t been seen before. Based on a statistical assumption about the data generation process, these strategies provide guarantees on the performance of the learned predictor on future unseen data.

Conclusion

The machine learning interview questions given above are the fundamentals of machine learning. Because machine learning is progressing at such a rapid pace, new concepts will arise. So join communities, go to conferences, and read research papers to stay up to date. You will be able to pass any ML interview if you do so.

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Chandni Ansari
JanBask Training

Chandni loves pursuing excellence through writing and has a passion for digital marketing. She currently writes for JanBaskDigitalDesign.com