In this series I will be attempting to answer current and retried Google interview questions. As outlined in the books How Google Works and Work Rules! Google has found that “boring,” non-riddle questions are best at predicting future performance, but some of the older questions I’ll be answering are riddles.

Question:

“Explain a database in three sentences to your 8-year-old nephew.”

Possible Answers:

(1) That’s my niece (awkward).

(2) The files are IN the computer.

(3) “Listen pal my nephew isn’t the one being interviewed here. He’s only 8, let’s wait until he’s 11 before we get him a full-time gig.”

(4) I would just show him this diagram. Isn’t it obvious what’s going on?

(5) Imagine we write down all of the titles of your favorite Disney movies on one sheet of paper, all of the different characters in the movies on another sheet of paper, and all of the different adventures the characters have on a third sheet of paper. That way if you ever decide you want to watch a movie about your characters going on a road trip we’ll already know all of the movies with that kind of adventure and we can just go over to the bookshelf and grab all of those movies. So the movies are the database and the sheets of paper are the special way we decided to organize the movies.