Interview Riddle

  • Thread starter Thread starter 319671
  • Start date Start date
OATBooster | The Ultimate OAT Resource
This forum made possible through the generous support of SDN members, donors, and sponsors. Thank you.
3

319671

Members do not see this ad.
If you were on a railroad track conducting a train that is out of control where the brakes malfunctioned and you are on straight track and there are 5 hostages tied down on the railroad track and 1 hostage tied down to the branch railroad track to the right, should you turn the train to the right and kill the 1 hostage on the right or should you just leave the train as it is and do nothing and kill 5 people in the straight track?


How would you answer than in an interview?
 
optohopeful123 said:
If you were on a railroad track conducting a train that is out of control where the brakes malfunctioned and you are on straight track and there are 5 hostages tied down on the railroad track and 1 hostage tied down to the branch railroad track to the right, should you turn the train to the right and kill the 1 hostage on the right or should you just leave the train as it is and do nothing and kill 5 people in the straight track?


How would you answer than in an interview?
Click to expand...

What is this....the Kobayashi Maru?

Well....in keeping with the Star Trek theme, I would switch the train because as Mr. Spock says....the needs of the many outweigh the needs of the few.
 
KHE said:
What is this....the Kobayashi Maru?

Well....in keeping with the Star Trek theme, I would switch the train because as Mr. Spock says....the needs of the many outweigh the needs of the few.
Click to expand...

Well someone I know said they got asked this in interview!
 
Classic thought experiment. Most people would say they would divert the train because by doing so they feel like they are "saving" five people versus "saving" one person.
But let's say the situation was a little different. The train only has one track with five people tied down on it, and there happens to be a really fat person walking around. If you pushed the fat person onto the tracks, the train would come to a stop while killing the fat person, and the five people tied to the track would survive. In this case five people live while one person dies just as in the situation above, but most people are more uncomfortable pushing the fat person because they feel that by doing so they are actively killing one person. But aren't these two situations effectively the same? Would you then consider diverting the train in the first scenario to be killing?
 
Amemus said:
Classic thought experiment. Most people would say they would divert the train because by doing so they feel like they are "saving" five people versus "saving" one person.
But let's say the situation was a little different. The train only has one track with five people tied down on it, and there happens to be a really fat person walking around. If you pushed the fat person onto the tracks, the train would come to a stop while killing the fat person, and the five people tied to the track would survive. In this case five people live while one person dies just as in the situation above, but most people are more uncomfortable pushing the fat person because they feel that by doing so they are actively killing one person. But aren't these two situations effectively the same? Would you then consider diverting the train in the first scenario to be killing?
Click to expand...

No, because I would still kill 5 people. I would probably warn ground staff of the situation, ask them to untie the people, evacuate my trian and then jump off before anyone was killed.
 
sorry, I couldn't resist responding.

How about this for an answer: I would try to derail the train (if this is even possible with malfunctioned breaks) before it got to any of the hostages and sacrifice myself.
 
optohopeful123 said:
i did google it, but what does my response have to do with character?
Click to expand...

That is what committees are looking for when they ask you questions like these - it's not like this is a situation you would ever face in the real world; but the way in which you answer the question reveals something about your character. So, effectively by logically working through how to solve the problem does not really show them who you are and is not the point of the question; if this was a real situation, your answer would probably be the best. But for interviews, the de-rail the train and sacrifice yourself answer shows that you value the lives of others over your own, ect.
 
agreenawalt said:
That is what committees are looking for when they ask you questions like these - it's not like this is a situation you would ever face in the real world; but the way in which you answer the question reveals something about your character. So, effectively by logically working through how to solve the problem does not really show them who you are and is not the point of the question; if this was a real situation, your answer would probably be the best. But for interviews, the de-rail the train and sacrifice yourself answer shows that you value the lives of others over your own, ect.
Click to expand...

MMMMM i see. what if they ask, how will you derail the train?
 
optohopeful123 said:
MMMMM i see. what if they ask, how will you derail the train?
Click to expand...

Haha don't worry we are going to optometry school not conductor school 😉 I doubt they would expect you to know how to derail a train. It's more the concept behind your answer that matters
 
agreenawalt said:
Haha don't worry we are going to optometry school not conductor school 😉 I doubt they would expect you to know how to derail a train. It's more the concept behind your answer that matters
Click to expand...

ohhhh I get it LOL. man I feel slow now. pfftttt😱
 
agreenawalt said:
no worries. happens to all of us 🙂
Click to expand...

do you know if the difficulty of a closed file interviews varies with how many questions you get "right" or "wrong"?? ie response adapative? I was told that you need to reach a certain "level" of correct responses to be considered? the more questions you answer correctly the harder your following questions get?
 
optohopeful123 said:
do you know if the difficulty of a closed file interviews varies with how many questions you get "right" or "wrong"?? ie response adapative? I was told that you need to reach a certain "level" of correct responses to be considered? the more questions you answer correctly the harder your following questions get?
Click to expand...

Hmm... never heard that one before. I read Kaplan's interview guide for the medical school interview, and that really helped me - they just help you orient your thoughts and prepare you to answer these sorts of questions that seem really scary and hard at first. I feel like with these kinds of questions, it's hard to answer it "wrong". the interview is all about the school finding out if you are going to be a good doctor. I would not focus on it so much as "right" and "wrong" answers, but answers that best convey you as the type of person that they would trust to admit to become a doctor. I would recommend the book though - very helpful if you are worried about the interview/unsure of what it will be like/uncertain of how to prepare
 
agreenawalt said:
Haha don't worry we are going to optometry school not conductor school 😉 I doubt they would expect you to know how to derail a train. It's more the concept behind your answer that matters
Click to expand...

I disagree. The point of the question is that you are forced to make a choice among two bad options, which do you choose? It's not possible to derail the train in time. Saying you would sacrifice yourself is nice but you're missing the point. It's a question that tests your reasoning and your philosophical perspective (e.g. utilitarian, deontology). It has clear connections to situations such as having a shortage and only being able to provide services to a few people; what would you do? This particular question has the added component of questioning whether you view actively harming someone morally equivalent to passively harming them, which also has all sorts of connections to health care.
The best way to answer this question is to choose a side and defend the logical consequences of your choice.
But I dunno, I was a philosophy major, I'd easily get carried away if I got this question 🙂
 
Amemus said:
I disagree. The point of the question is that you are forced to make a choice among two bad options, which do you choose? It's not possible to derail the train in time. Saying you would sacrifice yourself is nice but you're missing the point. It's a question that tests your reasoning and your philosophical perspective (e.g. utilitarian, deontology). It has clear connections to situations such as having a shortage and only being able to provide services to a few people; what would you do? This particular question has the added component of questioning whether you view actively harming someone morally equivalent to passively harming them, which also has all sorts of connections to health care.
The best way to answer this question is to choose a side and defend the logical consequences of your choice.
But I dunno, I was a philosophy major, I'd easily get carried away if I got this question 🙂
Click to expand...

I completely agree and I think it is well put; I simply mean that they would not necessarily be looking for her to know all of the parts of a train and their function and how to physically de-rail it. There is definitely a practical side to the question, I just meant that I doubted we would be expected to know how to mechanically de-rail a train. If they want us to answer the question in that way, I know I would certainly be in trouble, having no idea how to logistically operate a train 😛
 
optohopeful123 said:
If you were on a railroad track conducting a train that is out of control where the brakes malfunctioned and you are on straight track and there are 5 hostages tied down on the railroad track and 1 hostage tied down to the branch railroad track to the right, should you turn the train to the right and kill the 1 hostage on the right or should you just leave the train as it is and do nothing and kill 5 people in the straight track?


How would you answer than in an interview?
Click to expand...



If you turn to the right, you would directly be killing someone, whereas if you went straight, you are not actively killing 5 people. But you would also not be doing anything by going straight, which implies many things that are much worse than if you were to turn right.

Sure you killed one person, but you also SAVED 4 lives.😱

I wonder how long you are given to answer these questions?
 
optohopeful123 said:
If you were on a railroad track conducting a train that is out of control where the brakes malfunctioned and you are on straight track and there are 5 hostages tied down on the railroad track and 1 hostage tied down to the branch railroad track to the right, should you turn the train to the right and kill the 1 hostage on the right or should you just leave the train as it is and do nothing and kill 5 people in the straight track?


How would you answer than in an interview?
Click to expand...

I'd ask whether I know any of the six perso4ns, and, if so, in what regard. If they're all to be strangers, I'd say I change the train's direction such it kills one rather than five, then comment to how odd I find it this question has been raised in an interview for admission to optometry school.
 
I would say that if the train was out of control then turning it to the right has the possibility of derailing the entire train and killing everyone on board which would be a bigger disaster than killing 5 people. So with this logic I would continue going straight.
 
optohopeful123 said:
If you were on a railroad track conducting a train that is out of control where the brakes malfunctioned and you are on straight track and there are 5 hostages tied down on the railroad track and 1 hostage tied down to the branch railroad track to the right, should you turn the train to the right and kill the 1 hostage on the right or should you just leave the train as it is and do nothing and kill 5 people in the straight track?


How would you answer than in an interview?
Click to expand...

I agree with some of the others. The point isnt about KILLING here, but about DECISION making. Do you make a choice to go straight or make a choice to go right?

How I would answer this? I would go straight because I know where the train is going. Going right? Who knows where I will end up and how long it would take to get there.

How I would related this to health? Going straight: Basic Standard of Care (find your own examples...google it... lol). Going right: treating something willy nilly knowing the standard of care.
 
Sorry to intrude on your forum, but i thought this question was pretty interesting. We actually had this debate in a class i took about public health and healthcare ethics, except it was the one about the fat guy being pushed.

Apparently, the example is used often in field of public health, putting the needs of the group above the individual. So maybe... the interviewer could be seeing how you feel about optometric public health? A far stretch perhaps...
 
You must log in or register to reply here.

Similar threads

H
UAB Interview Invite?
Replies
0
Views
2K
hawthornqueen22122
H
M
SUNY Interview
Replies
1
Views
3K
liteanimica
L
M
SCCO Interview Invite Response Time
Replies
0
Views
2K
MPHhopeful20
M
vxtruly
Preparation for interview for SUNY, NECO, and Salus
Replies
1
Views
3K
Mr.Smile12
Mr.Smile12
SR71
Salus (PCO) Interview Offer
Replies
2
Views
4K
cheese_bender
cheese_bender
Top