What train, validation, and test ratios are common?
PICTURE THIS: DATA SPLIT
Fit on train, tune on val, report on test once.
Simple meaning
People often use about 70/15/15 or 80/10/10 when there is plenty of data.
WHY — Train/Val/Test instead of guessing?
Why interviewers care about Train/Val/Test:
who only read docs from people who shipped.
and tied to AI / ML work.
Name the idea, why it exists, then one short example.
End with when you use it and one common pitfall.
STEPS — What happens step by step?
Before you speak the answer, walk the interviewer through these steps:
- 1People often use about
70/15/15 or 80/10/10 when there is plenty of data.
- 2With smaller tables, a
holdout val set is often replaced by cross-validation on the training portion.
- 3Time-ordered data should be
split chronologically, not shuffled at random.
- 4Give an example
One tiny concrete case you can say aloud.
- 5Common mistake
What juniors usually get wrong.
- 6Close
When you pick this over the alternative.
EXAMPLE — See it in action
Here's a short line you can speak, broken into clear beats:
Note: Adapt this scaffold to your own project — keep it under 60–90 seconds.
Key takeaway
People often use about 70/15/15 or 80/10/10 when there is plenty of data. With smaller tables, a holdout val set is often replaced by cross-validation on the training portion.